is the country left leaning or what?
do you want next POTUS to support.....?
- Thread starter JuliefromOhio
- Start date
is the country left leaning or what?
as seen on tv
Senator
and a variety of polls establish that americans oppose the TPP by a wide margin, vs. those favoring it.
go figure
https://ballotpedia.org/The_Trans-Pacific_Partnership_trade_deal:_Public_opinion_on_TPP_and_TTIP
go figure
https://ballotpedia.org/The_Trans-Pacific_Partnership_trade_deal:_Public_opinion_on_TPP_and_TTIP
D
Deleted member 21794
Guest
Simple answers for simple minds. Take trade agreements, for example. Of course more people support them. The question is, what are the details? Do people want trade agreements that send jobs to Mexico? Do they want Obama to export jobs to Asia?
Julie honey you should really try thinking once in a while. You don't seem to be able to work past anything more complicated than what could fit on a bumper sticker.
Arkady
President
It's simple minds on both sides.
Find an average person who agrees with Trump that, say, NAFTA was a bad deal for the US. Now ask the person to identify what terms, in particular, should be changed. 99 times out of 100 you'll get some inane and generic blather about removing the bits that send our jobs to Mexico.... without identifying what bits those are. Most on the right essentially just parrot the imbecilic talking points of Trump, which channel xenophobia without boring anyone with any actual substance.
International trade is a topic of some interest to me, and one where I have at least a little professional expertise (my area of focus in law school was international law and commerce). So, I've listened with interest when Trump has spoken on the subject and I have yet to hear anything of substance. There's all sorts of empty accusations that those who negotiated NAFTA (the GHW Bush administration, even though it didn't get ratified until the Clinton years, if anyone's interested), were bad negotiators who got a bad deal, and that he'll do better. But nothing in the way of specifics.
I've got all sorts of ideas for how our trade deals should be altered, if anyone is interested. They're specific ideas, not empty-headed generic assurances that I could do better if I had a chance, such as we hear from Trump.
So, if you want to get past what could fit on a bumper sticker ("Stop sending jobs to Mexico") how about some specifics? What particular changes would you like to see to our trade deals?
RickWA
The Pissant Snagglesooth
Nothing to say in those IDIOTICALLY VAGUE poll questions?
That's a good, bought and paid for lapdog.
A "path to citizenship" for whom? "Support which trade agreements"?
Lefty monolith - brought to you by lisping, uncritical hacks since Woodrow Wilson.
D
Deleted member 21794
Guest
I'll give you a semi-specific example Trump gave in the past that I agree with. We have been protecting South Korea with our military for six decades. With that in mind, we need to negotiate our trade deals that reflects them paying access to our markets in exchange for us protecting them.
Now as far as you blaming Bush for NAFTA, that's laughable. NAFTA would mean NOTHING without Bill Clinton's signature on it.
But do tell us about Hillary Clinton's brilliant specifics on trade deals. So far, all we know is she has flip flopped on TPP.
RickWA
The Pissant Snagglesooth
Now you're talking!
While Arkady is moaning about not being an unpaid research resource on matters that don't support his rigid, dogmatic canon...he eagerly pens lengthy Hillary advocacy pieces to the tune of dozens and dozens per week.
Whether he is "unpaid" to be an unbending DNC waterboy seems to be a bit of a sore subject.
Arkady
President
The poll questions were crap, obviously. But it's damned hard to put together a poll that isn't, since you almost inevitably end up with simplistic binary framing of issues in order to get something clearly quantifiable. This is why I generally don't know how to engage with polls, when I'm asked.
Take the first question. Presumably just about 100% of us support a pathway to citizenship of some sort. For example, being born to two US parents is a pathway to citizenship, as is being born within the United States, as is marrying a US citizen, as is landing on US soil if you're a Cuban national, and so on. I doubt anyone wants to eliminate all those pathways to citizenship. Yet 34% said they oppose a pathway to citizenship. Presumably they were thinking about one particular pathway to citizenship that they disagree with -- for example, a pathway that would allow some people currently here illegally to become citizens without first having to leave the country. But, the question wasn't clear on that.
As discussed above, supporting or opposing trade agreements is also problematic. We can all, I hope, think of trade agreements we could support and ones we could oppose. So, the unspoken context is that we're talking about the currently controversial trade agreements -- and even then, there's ambiguity. One could support NAFTA and oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership, for example, and then how would you answer? Or you could support 95% of the rules of the WTO but object to the other 5%. That doesn't fit into a binary question.
Abortion's another tough one. Nearly everyone supports some form of legal abortion (e.g., abortion in the event that, absent the abortion, for medical reasons, both the woman and the fetus will almost certainly die anyway). And the vast majority of people oppose legalizing some forms of abortion (e.g., late-term abortion for sex selection, or abortion for purposes of organ harvesting).
Even the gun control question is tricky, since what if I were to support rolling back gun control overall, but also in support of imposing at least one new regulation in the area. Then I'm not supporting stricter gun control in the overall sense, but I am supporting stricter gun control in that particular instance. So, no clear answer.
At best, it generates a vague "temperature taking" for the populace on those subjects -- probably useful for measuring the movements of public sentiment over time, but it won't tell you much about how people will fall when it comes to more specific issues. But, frankly, most people never really engage with much specificity, anyway, so I'm not sure the specifics are as important as we'd like to think.
Lukey
Senator
The only poll that counts is the one on November 8:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-clintons-lead-is-as-safe-as-kerrys-was-in-2004/
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-clintons-lead-is-as-safe-as-kerrys-was-in-2004/
Arkady
President
That's fine by me. But, it's not like we agreed to protect them out of the kindness of our hearts in the first place. It was about holding the line against communism. We thought that was worth the money spent, for our own reasons, and we saw South Korea's contribution not in terms of paying extra to access our markets, but rather in terms of their bearing the brunt of the front-line defense, as well as lending us their land for bases that have value to us in terms of our regional designs (including holding China in check). If we demand payment in the form of some sort of access charge to our markets, and they refuse, and say they'll handle their own defense, would your approach be just to accept that and bring our troops home, returning the South Korean land to them?
I think both Clinton and Bush share the credit for NAFTA. Bush's team negotiated it but failed to get it ratified, Clinton's team got it ratified. I think that, overall, it's been a positive for each of the countries involved.
She supported it in an early form and opposed it in a later form. Whether that was a flip-flop or plausibly due to actual substantive changes between those two times is a question I can't answer, because I don't know the details of what changed.
that's because that most Americans were unfamiliar with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP)
from your link.
Trump’s odds have improved. He has a 36% chance of winning the election.
<smirk>
yes, Americans......
1. want undocumented persons to have a path to citizenship,
2. support trade agreements.
3. legal abortion.
4. stricter gun control.
that restores my faith in Americans.
1. want undocumented persons to have a path to citizenship,
2. support trade agreements.
3. legal abortion.
4. stricter gun control.
that restores my faith in Americans.
Barbella
Senator
The devil is always in the details, LOL. Some people just either gloss over those pesky li'l things and sing kumbaya, while others might try to understand them, but just can't...
D
Deleted member 21794
Guest
I'm not so sure it's been great for us, but it's certainly been great for Mexico. But then again, with globalism, there are going to be winners and losers. Frankly, we have nowhere to go but down overall. But yeah, let's go ahead and give both Bush and Clinton their due. Democrat, Republican, it gets harder and harder to tell the difference.
I suspect the flip flopped based on her need to win the primary, but who can say for sure. I'm against any treaty that gives a president autonomy to negotiate and doesn't pass the Senate like any other treaty. That said, I'm not confident 2/3 of our Senators aren't dumb asses who can be bought off or aren't stupid enough to vote for something that isn't a net loss for us.
D
Deleted member 21794
Guest
yes, Americans......
1. want undocumented persons to have a path to citizenship,
2. support trade agreements.
3. legal abortion.
4. stricter gun control.
that restores my faith in Americans.
Thanks for confirming you can do nothing more complex than a bumper sticker. It's always nice when you call someone a dumb ass and they are actually dumb enough to confirm it- especially with a smile on their face.
worldlymrb
Daddy
What if these questions were asked?
Do you support SECRET TRADE AGREEMENTS? Y/N
DO YOUR SUPPORT OPEN BORDERS/AMNESTY? Y/N
