(10-14-2016, 05:39 AM)PaulP link Wrote:I must have a fairly low pain threshold - for me it went totally off the rails months ago.

(10-14-2016, 04:40 AM)Mav link Wrote:That Hillary orchestrated the fateful interlude between Monica and Bill so she would benefit from being seen as the victim of cheating.  What a Machiavellian character she is!

Quote:Most successful democracies have parliamentary governments — often backed by proportional electoral systems — leading to a politics that reenforces this tendency and avoids tipping points. In the American system, small shifts in public sentiment can lead to drastic changes — either Bush or Gore, either Clinton or Trump — whereas the Dutch or German electoral systems ensure that a small change in voting behavior leads to a small change in the composition of parliament. Any given party could put a fool or a knave forward as leader, and he might still win votes. But to exercise meaningful power he would need to negotiate with other coalition partners, which is hard to do if you’re a fool.

The American system has no such safeguard. If a fool or a knave secures the nomination of one of the major political parties, he has a pretty good chance of becoming president, at which point all bets are off.

When the office was originally designed by the framers of the Constitution, they meant for it to be an indirectly elected office whose holder would be selected by a collaborative meeting of Electoral College members, thus insulating it from popular whims. Strong democratic norms led rather swiftly to a system that more closely resembles direct election. But at various points in time, the process for nominating candidates served the role of structuring the public’s choices.

As E.E. Schattschneider wrote in his 1940s classic Party Government, “Democracy is not found in the parties but between the parties.”

But things change over time. The boss-led party system of Schattschneider’s day was replaced by a more open one in the 1970s, which, in turn, seems to have evolved back in a more elite-driven direction in the 1980s and ’90s. Today, however, in part thanks to technology-driven shifts in the media, the party system is opening up again, and party elites are losing control.

(10-18-2016, 04:05 AM)Mav link Wrote:Trump's appeal to "the deplorables" will help when it comes to entering the media market but it also undermines his core business of licensing his name for luxury products.  He hasn't built anything since 2008 excluding golf courses.  People think he builds hotels, skyscrapers and developments but he doesn't.  He licenses his name to other developers for a fee.  But has his embrace of the rednecks destroyed the cachet of his name?  Rednecks aren't going to pay to go to his luxury resorts and other guests would run away if they did.  Will the wealthy be less willing to patronise his luxury hotels?  We'd need to hear from a marketing guru but it seems to me he's taken his brand downmarket.

(10-20-2016, 08:19 PM)Lods link Wrote:Trump is going OK in  the debate, holding  his own, scoring a few hits on Hillary.....

Then he exercises his second amendment right to "shoot himself in the foot" by refusing to say he'd necessarily accept the result of the election. ;D :