But [Stein's] contempt has a more cutting quality when she talks about Clinton. She mocks Trump as braying menace; Stein thinks he's, at heart, a bumbler who will be neutered by his own party after being elected. But it's Clinton who poses the greater threat, in Stein's estimation, because she knows how to move the levers of Washington. "Donald Trump, I think, will have a lot of trouble moving things through Congress," Stein explains. "Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, won't… Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage, get us into more wars, faster to pass her fracking disastrous climate program, much more easily than Donald Trump could do his."See also Dave Weigel:
"Trump would be restrained by Congress and lose in 2020" is prob the message I hear most from Green voters https://t.co/So2JENAxx0
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) September 19, 2016
Where does this idea come from? Here's more of what Stein tells Politico:
“The guy has a lot of problems -- physical, mental, emotional, cognitive,” Stein said of Trump.That may be true if you go back more than five years, but he's been consistent, at least in broad outline, on most issues in the years since he started using his Fox punditry gig to turn himself into a pol. As Evan Osnos writes in The New Yorker:
As proof of his (alleged) pathology, she pointed to his position-hopping on a range of issues, which she cast as erratic rather than calculating -- from his fuzzy Iraq positions over the years, to his brief “softening” on immigration last month, to his decision (on the day we spoke) to suddenly renounce birtherism after five years of banging a drumbeat of lies.
“It's hard to, you know, to think too hard about anything Donald Trump says because he will change his mind in the next hour, if not the next day, or whatever,” she added. “Today, suddenly, after five years, he became convinced that it's not an issue. Yesterday it was an issue. It will probably become an issue again for him. You know, the guy may have a memory problem. Who knows what it is? But he's incapable of having a consistent thought or policy.”
When Trump talks about what he will create and what he will eliminate, he doesn’t depart from three core principles: in his view, America is doing too much to try to solve the world’s problems; trade agreements are damaging the country; and immigrants are detrimental to it. He wanders and hedges and doubles back, but he ... never strays too far from his essential positions.And despite his belief that "America is doing too much to try to solve the world’s problems," he's consistently said that he wants to engage in total war against ISIS and Al Qaeda, even if it means committing war crimes. Osnos again:
To confront terrorism, Trump has said, “you have to take out their families,” work on “closing that Internet up in some ways,” and use tactics that are “frankly unthinkable” and “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”He also thinks we should have expropriated Iraqi oil. And he believes in the magic-word theory of counterterrorism: say "radical Islamic terror" often enough and you'll be more likely to defeat the enemy.
On domestic issues, he consistently promises large tax cuts (even though he may occasionally pretend he's a populist on the carried-interest rule for hedge fund managers). He consistently promises deregulation. He consistently pooh-poohs climate change. He used to be pro-choice, but he consistently says he isn't anymore. He consistently praises only the most right-wing of judges.
On nearly every issue, his positions are (a) mainstream conservatism or (b) mainstream conservatism on steroids. So, as Pierce says:
On what does [Stein] base her conclusion that a President Trump will be neutered by the Republicans in Congress? (We must stipulate that, if he were to win the presidency, the Republicans also would maintain their majorities in both houses of Congress and that means, hello, Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown!) They would pass the bills and he would sign just about anything they wanted him to sign.A long time ago, Trump used to be closer to the center on few issues, and liberal on a few more; as a result, too many Americans think his ideology as president would be hard to predict, and therefore don't fear him. Because he uttered what appeared to be a few conservative heresies during the primaries, it's believed that he'd be at loggerheads with a GOP Congress. And because it's taboo in mainstream political discourse to say that the rest of the Republican Party already consists of crazy right-wing radicals, it's believed that the danger come 2017 would emanate only from Trump -- you'll have nothing to fear from Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, even if you have Jill Stein's politics.
All of this is nuts. Giving the presidency to any of Trump's primary opponents would have been bad enough -- it would have turned America into Sam Brownback's Kansas or Bobby Jindal's Louisiana or Scott Walker's Wisconsin. Trump, if he's president, will go along with the en-Koch-ening of the federal government in most particulars, then add his own craziness on top of that. He'll sign nearly every bill the GOP Congress has wanted to pass for years. He won't be constrained by Congress, except possibly on trade. And then he'll add his own madness on top of that -- with no moderation. Remember, he was more or less in the middle and didn't get to be president. If tacking sharply to the right gets him electing president, why would he let go of what worked for him?
10 comments:
Jill Stein must be nucking futs to think that Clinton would do more harm than t-RUMP!
All he wants is to be called "President t-RUMP," or "Mr. President."
He'll sign whatever shitty conservative policies McConnell and Ryan and the other Republicn loons can dream up. And he'll do it gladly, because they'll praise him for his "wisdom" in doing so.
He may decide to open-up internment camps for Muslims.
And let's not even think about what forms of torture he may ok.
And, if that won't be horrible enough, he'll certainly ignore global warming, and we 'frogs' can continue to cook slowly - or die quickly, because of tornaedo's and hurricanes, and other weather related incidents.
Dr. Jill Stein needs to STFU!
And maybe she needs to get a check-up from the neck-up by going to another doctor - a Psychiatrist.
This reminds me so much of Ralph Nader. Nader didn't like Republicans but he absolutely hated Democrats. This was not because of their positions, but because he regarded himself as the avatar of left leaning righteousness, and was furious with Dems on a personal level for refusing to recognize their responsibility to roll over for him, and hand him anything he wanted. So he conducted a campaign almost entirely aimed at harming Gore; we all know the results. Jill Stein is a far weaker character nationally, thank heaven, since hardly anyone had ever heard of her before this campaign, but I see in her the same smug arrogance, and the same conviction that Democrats are evil for refusing to acknowledge her superiority.
Jill Stein is insane.
Dr. Jill Stein is "the Left" version of Dr. Ben Carson.
Stein is a Russian agent, same as Trump, except she works for free.
"He won't be constrained by Congress, except possibly on trade. And then he'll add his own madness on top of that -- with no moderation."
Eh. He'll sign whatever they want him to and then declare it "a terrific Trump deal" and blame the fallout on Obama, Bush and the loses and haters.
Jesus Christ these #neverClintons are thick. They shouldn't be allowed out without minders.
The problem isn't that Donald Trump will have a lot of trouble moving things through Congress, you witless fool. It's that Congress will have no trouble moving things through Donald Trump.
Spot on, Ken.
Jill Stein embodies the absolute worst of the arrogantly clueless far left. They're as deranged, as sealed off in their own ideological bubble, as the worst of the far right.
And yes, Green Eagle, like Nader there's a massive amount of egocentricity driving her. I recall hearing a snippet of an interview of Stein during the 2008 campaign, and the smug condescension toward Obama she displayed made me want to reach through the ether and slap her silly.
Minor party fans have all sorts of idiotic rationalizations.
According to several analyses I've read, while the Indy boys take more or less equally from both Clinton and Trump, Stein takes almost entirely from Clinton. IMO she'd know this even better, more viscerally and for a lot longer, than those analysts.
There's a lot that's nutty about Jill Stein, but is it really nuts to go after where she's been vampiring off support already to both preserve and expand her votes? It seems to me about as shrewd as Trump's strategy is for him.
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