Likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump have incredibly high negative ratings in the polls. Also, Clinton is far to the right of her party while Trump is to the left of his. How will the usual voter revulsion play out this year?
Trump Democrats vs. Hillary Republicans
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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shouldn’t this read “…let’s agree to JUST stay home and NOT vote?” 🙂
Perhaps the voter is being deliberately confusing.
This triggers a thought.
Back in 2008, HRC and Obama fought it out, and HRC said some pretty nasty stuff. And what did Obama do? He made her Secretary of State. And she’s turned out to be a pretty terrible one.
Why am I thinking Obama did it deliberately? Set her up to fail by putting her in a position he knew her ego wouldn’t be able to refuse but that she simply didn’t have the skills to carry off well?
Obama isn’t clever or farsighted enough for that, however much I love the idea.
Yeah, I made the same agreement with a republican I met in a bar. Eleven different ones in fact. >;->
P. J. O’Rourke has asked all Republicans to vote for Secretary Clinton. Three Bushes have done the same, along with a large minority of the Republican leadership.
And the young people who wanted Senator Sanders are unlikely to switch to Trump, but many will stay home or vote for some other party rather than voting to put the Clintons back in the White House.
But doing the maths, we’ll see another President Clinton in January, barring some very unlikely catastrophe.
Trump’s to the left of his party? But how that be when is certainly that most right wing of right wingers one Adolf Hitler?
Seriously while this is not the first time I’ve heard the opinion, I don’t get it. Trump’s making the neoconservatives look bad because he is a better conservative than they ever even tried to be. Neoconservatives have much more in common with and are largely allies with Democrats.
I’ll add that being less hawkish does not make one more to the left. There’s a long history of a anti-war conservatives.
I don’t much care for his robust support of social programs but I understand it’s required in these times.
Trump is definitely taking left positions with respect to the Billionaires that he skewers rhetorically.
Look at the etymology of the word “left”. The right hand is the hand of power; the left hand is the weak hand.
Of course, this power perspective is one from the right handed majority, not from the left handed minority.
The politically weak victims of NAFTA type trade agreements and predatory bank scofflaws are weak before the powerful political establishment that Trump challenges and, who in turn, reject Trump.
Trump seeks votes from those victimized by the Republican and Democratic backed oligarchic power regime.
The oligarchic puppetry always campaigns for political legitimacy through votes from the weak left. Hillary, Trump, and Sanders all campaign for votes from the politically weak majority. (See the study by Gilens and Page for elucidation on the topic of the politically weak majority.)
The question remaining is which candidates have an extensive history of commitment to the politically weak, and which have had rhetorical campaign conversions of convenience by pandering to the left.
It never ceases to amaze me how Americans have such selective hearing and memories. They listen to what a politician says, instead of watching what he does.
At that, they listen to only half what he says – Trump is a rich man proposing even more tax cuts for the rich, yet many of the Trump Chumps still believe he will stand up for the middle class. (Hint: he didn’t get where he is today by caring about anyone other than himself.)
While the right has it worse – see What’s the matter with Kansas – the left is not immune by any means. Many on the left believe that Hillary will stand up for the middle class as well.
No doubt I’m being ridiculously pedantic, but just FYI, the origins of “left” and “right” go back to the French revolution. It started with supporters of the revolution on the left, and of the king on the right. Continued with the Jacobins on the left, and the Girondins on the right. Ended during the Thermidorian reaction. For a while, in 1793-4, there was no one sitting on the right.
No worries, suetonius17, many of us enjoy a history lesson once in a while, and the rest of us need a history lesson once in a while.
FWIW, today, democratic congresscritters sit on the left and the wrong wing sit on the right side of the center aisle. (from the audience’s perspective – in theatrical terms the “left” sits stage right.)
@suetonius17
No problem, S.
The word predates the French Revolution by 500 years, give or take a few decades.
Self identified people of the Left squirm uncomfortably at the indignity of being weak when I bring this to their attention.
America, being the costume party that it is, doesn’t like to face the reality of the situation and Americans of the Left become indignant when confronted with the word’s etymology.
It doesn’t go well with the chant, “The people will never be defeated,” when in fact they’re defeated with regularity.
That’s why I always vote for a principled loser. Only when all of the losers vote for one of their own—a loser—can the losers ever win.
c. 1200, from Kentish and northern English form of Old English lyft- “weak, foolish” (compare lyft-adl “lameness, paralysis,” East Frisian luf, Dutch dialectal loof “weak, worthless”). It emerged 13c. as “opposite of right” (the left being usually the weaker hand), a derived sense also found in cognate Middle Dutch and Low German luchter, luft. But German link, Dutch linker “left” are said to be not directly related, being instead from Old High German slinc and Middle Dutch slink “left,” which are related to Old English slincan “crawl” (Modern English (see slink), Swedish linka “limp,” slinka “dangle.”
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=left
@Glenn
It’s funny, I was going to use the exact same source that you used to point out what suetonius17 did. You should have read a bit further, or you shouldn’t have cherry-picked your quotation.
The word “left” may very well predate the French Revolution by many centuries, but it’s meaning in a political sense does not. As stated by your source for the etymological meaning of left, “Political sense arose from members of a legislative body assigned to the left side of a chamber, first attested in English 1837 (by Carlyle, in reference to the French Revolution), probably a loan-translation of French la gauche (1791), said to have originated during the seating of the French National Assembly in 1789 in which the nobility took the seats on the President’s right and left the Third Estate to sit on the left. The term became general in U.S. and British political speech c. 1900. ”
Your claim, “Look at the etymology of the word ‘left’. The right hand is the hand of power; the left hand is the weak hand.” is simply false.
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