(Part 2) Top products from r/PoliticalDiscussion

Sorry for the late response, I've been pretty busy all day.

Anyway,

> The problem, I think, is trying to make an issue that's not so black-and-white look black-and-white. In the poll you linked, read the write-in responses below. Most of the comments for the 'agrees' say things like "gains and losses are not spread evenly" or "economists understate short-term employment costs"

True. Trade is not black-and-white, there are winners and losers. There is consensus on that as well -- the losers are those who lose their jobs, and the winners are literally everyone else (not just the uber-rich). If you're interested in reading about trade and how it does and does not affect the economy, I'd suggest this Paul Krugman essay.

However, the consensus is still there. Although some particular trade deals might not be considered favorable to the US (Krugman described himself as a "lukewarm opponent" to the TPP) trade overall is seen as a massively positive benefit to the economy due to comparative advantage. The extremely quick drop in world poverty and rise in living standards can mostly be attributed to trade.

Also, I see you've noticed Acemoglu's comment. You left out

> probably less than benefits

Which makes a huge difference. I highly recommend his book, Why Nations Fail though if you are more interested in his thought process.

> It's worth noting that Sanders is only 'anti-free-trade' in the black and white world, and in reality his stance is that these agreements can be good if there are stipulations like retraining programs, comparative working condition requirements, etc.

Sander's view is about as black-and-white as you can get. He has opposed literally every single trade deal he could, whether or not they had any of those stipulations.

And, I know I've linked Krugman a lot -- I don't think he's infallible but he's one of the very best resources on trade -- here he explains in plain English why "comparative working conditions" may not lead to quite as good an outcome as you'd expect. I agree with you and Bernie that retraining programs are necessary, as would many economists (there's not quite a consensus because that is more a matter of opinion on what is "right") but the fact is that there is and has been a solid consensus in economics on the benefits of free trade, comparable almost to that of global warming for climate scientists.

> Yes it is
> Here's a great example
> Like did you just not pay attention to the general election at all

This is a single campaign ad. It's not the overarching strategy or theme of the campaign. This strategy I mentioned is spoken about heavily in this book that was written over the course of the campaign. I'm not going to dig through the book again to find an exact source for it, but I found an article that discusses this point about the book here.

> That's less of an assessment and more of a talking point

It's an actual assessment. There were multiple focus group studies conducted of Bernie supporters and the results were abysmal. They couldn't even run ads Bernie did for the campaign since they performed so poorly.

> Is this why they continued to fight to push the DNC to include genuine progressive reforms into the official party platform (literally all of which were summarily voted down by Clinton's committee majority)

This is being misrepresented a bit. Bernie's share of representatives on this committee was disproportionately large in comparison to what the runner up nominee got in prior elections. Your views on this seems a bit odd as well. You're acting as though it's an outrage that the Clinton team did not agree with everything the Bernie people put forward. It's their right to disagree and propose competing ideas, that's not some type of injustice or scandal.

> Like, you can't say that there's nothing that Clinton could have done to court genuine progressive liberals when she not only avoided any attempt whatsoever to do so, but further remained continuously dismissive at best, often reaching the point of blatant condescension for the entirety of her campaign.

This was a leaked outtake of something she said in a fundraiser, not exactly a campaign strategy they implemented. In context I don't disagree with anything she said here.

>Policy was irrelevant
>Are you insane

No, I'm not. The electorate votes on how candidates make them feel and which of the candidates they like more. The reality is policy is utterly irrelevant, the people who care about policy are usually partisan voters that follow politics closely and even those people aren't capable of determining what is a good liberal policy or bad liberal policy.

>Yeah I uh
>I think I already covered this kind of thing
>You seem to be generally out of touch with members of the party over here on the left end of the spectrum, but if you have an authentic desire to reach out in the interest of understanding, and in working towards figuring out how the center-right portion of the party might be able reach some actual, meaningful compromises with the genuine left, then I am more than happy to engage in such a discussion

I've worked with the Democratic party and I've also worked with local grassroots movements like indivisible. I'm not out of touch at all, which is why I know it's hopeless. Your entire post is a great example of why it's utterly hopeless.

Basically this is the game plan lets use his first ad as an example;

1. Trump shows ad of people going over Moroccan border
   
   
2. Media discovers this and says 'I gotchu, I will finally stump the Trump'
   
   
3. Media plays Trumps ad for free 25,346 times
   
   
4. Trump left enough plausible deniability to say "We'll end up big losers like them. I intentionally used that footage as an example of a darker path"
   
   
5. Congratulations you just stumped yourself
   
   This Russian vet thing will play out the same except he'll use it as a way to praise Putin perhaps so the Russophile vote goes even more to him as well.
   
   Pretty much everything he's doing was outlined in The Art of the Deal. That's not to say a lot of the media isn't aware of his game by now. But they mostly care about ratings and the ones who want to stop Trump will take any opportunity to do so even though they always backfire. It really is amazing how Trump is playing them especially when something like a throwaway SNL line to a fairly reasonable comment ruined Palin.
   
   

To be fair, he's hardly the only one.

In 1969 someone wrote a book called The Emerging Republican Majority that correctly predicted coming Republican dominance due to demographic changes. And the book was quite right when you look at presidential contests. From 1968 to 1988 Republicans won 5 out of 6 presidential elections. And the 1 they lost (Carter, 1976) they only narrowly lost.

In 2004 someone wrote a book called The Emerging Democratic Majority, making much the same prediction based on demographic changes. Sure Bush later won reelection that year, but the exit poll numbers only reinforced the author's point about how the GOP was losing in growing demographic groups, and hence likely to struggle more at winning elections.

These kinds of demographic changes DO NOT mean it's impossible for one party to win the white house however. Only that until demographics or voting behavior starts changing significantly that one party will struggle more at winning national elections.

To say that demographics mean Democrats will control the government for the next 4 or however many decades goes too far.

In college, Cleveland's History of the Modern Middle East was my favorite history book about the Middle East. A little clinical and textbook-y but I thought it was very objective with a good level of detail.

Edit - I also thought From Beirut to Jerusalem was excellent. This was before Friedman became his current hacky self, and is very different from his work the last 10+ years. This book was very enjoyable and easy to read, and therefore would be very accessible for somebody just treating it as pleasure reading. The big downsides are that it may be a bit outdated and it isn't comprehensive or complete - it largely focuses on covering the highlights of the Israel-Palestine conflict and Lebanese civil war; it also isn't as academic.

Becoming politically literate is not like learning how to fix a car. There is no "unbiased" how-to manual. The reason for this is that political discussions consist of claims about: a) what the facts are, b) which facts matter and how they matter, c) whose claims about the facts are trustworthy, and d) what justice consists of. Most of these disputes are ideological, and so you will not find an ideologically netural ("unbiased") account of politics.

I would suggest immersing yourself in different political media and then see which points of view tend to best account for the facts and to best correspond to your sense of justice. Spend some time watching Fox news (hard-right), skimming through the NY Times (center-right), and and then listen to FAIR's Counterspin (hard-left).

Here are some books I would recommend. (These are all written from a hard-left to center-left perspective, but their authors are all serious scholars/intellectuals, and you will learn a lot from them.)

-Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States

-Vijay Prashad's The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World

-Joseph Stiglitz's The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them

-Doug Henwood's After the New Economy

>The 1982 recession was worse than the 1991 or 2001 ones, so it took more growth to recover from.

Yes, and the 2008 recession was even worse, yet the economic bounceback was anemic. If the economy's ability to recover from recessions had remained statically dynamic for the past 30 years then there should have been a huge uptick in growth between 2009-2012ish. But there wasn't, and the rebound from the Great Recession was even worse when you remember that recoveries ought to be commensurate with the severity of the preceding recession. The pattern for the past 30 years is that the economy takes longer to recover from each successive recession even when accounting for the severity of that recession.

>Well yeah, because the postwar boom ended. That was never going to last forever.

Yes, but our expectations for individual opportunity and future quality of life increases are still based on those post-war norms of 3.6% GDP growth, 2.2%ish Real GDP/Capita growth, 2.2% productivity growth, high levels of job creation......etc. But it's very possible that those norms will never return.. And if people are forced to live in a world of drastically diminished economic growth in which normal working class people have fewer opportunities and there is less opportunity for upward mobility due to decreased economic churn then it would not be unrealistic to expect them to react by voting for angry populists who promise simple solutions for complex problems.

In fact, I'd say that has already begun.

A History of the Modern Middle East

> This comprehensive work provides a penetrating analysis of modern Middle Eastern history, from the Ottoman and Egyptian reforms, through the challenge of Western imperialism, to the impact of US foreign policies. After introducing the reader to the region’s history from the origins of Islam in the seventh century, A History of the Modern Middle East focuses on the past two centuries of profound and often dramatic change. Although built around a framework of political history, the book also carefully integrates social, cultural, and economic developments into a single, expertly crafted account. In updating this fifth edition of the late William Cleveland’s popular introductory text, Martin Bunton provides a thorough account of the major transformative developments over the past four years, including a new chapter on the tumultuous Arab uprisings and the participation of Islamist parties in a new political order in the Middle East.

Matt taibbi just wrote a book about this if you're interested in the concept.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Divide-American-Injustice-Wealth/dp/081299342X

It's a good book, worth the time.

That isn't a hypothetical, that's having no idea about basic functions of government.

Presidential Power - Richard Neustadt
[Presidential Leadership in Political Times] - Stephen Skowronek
[The Presidential Difference] - Fred Greenstein

All good, all easy to find, all explaining in fairly clear detail just how powerful the presidency is, how it works in the real world, and what it can and can not do.

Your rambly bullshit is rambly.

If you haven't read it yet, I think you'd enjoy What's the Matter with Kansas?

Go on. You can do it. I'll even give you a link.

http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Common-Sense-Economy/dp/0465022529/

Specifically the chapter on 'regulations' might be of interest to you.

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

I think you nailed it. I highly recommend the book Nixonland if you haven’t read it.

You might be interested in this book by economist Thomas Sowell (who happens to be a black man who has researched these issues thoroughly.)

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy Paperback by Thomas Sowell

>Sowell presents a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Sowell sees what has happened during that time not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a tainted vision whose defects have led to crises in education, crime, and family dynamics, and to other social pathologies. In this book, he describes how elites—the anointed—have replaced facts and rational thinking with rhetorical assertions, thereby altering the course of our social policy.

here is a 11 minute excerpt

Thomas Sowell explains the process of disaggregation, how it can affect data sets and how residual differences can be attributed to things such as 'discrimination' but they often don't mean a thing. This process is taken very seriously by people that share a common vision of the world. This is an except from Thomas Sowell's book "The Vision of the Anointed - Self Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy"

The economists generally agree with you.

This one is for you, you'll like it.


https://www.amazon.com/Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social-Policy/dp/046508995X

The book that originated the theory.

This should be mandatory reading for any aspiring political analyst. Too many people read the book and concluded that since demographics would allow democrats to win no matter what, they could abandon the center and push whatever the base wanted without consequence. Trump unfortunately is the consequence of not reading the book more closely.

I figured that was what you were thinking but didn't expect you to admit it openly.

> Spoiler: it's black people.
>
> I don't know if there's a single perfect book, because it's a difficult problem and nobody knows all the answers. Here's a decent book that tackles the politically correct part of the problem. For the politically incorrect part, you can read between the lines of books like this or you can delve into the horrible dark corners of the Internet like this. As to the validity of the politically correct and politically incorrect theories, who knows. Maybe it's a combination?

Democracy: The God that Failed

Democracy is not a good way to run a country. The electoral college was an attempt by the Founders (rather anti-democratic folks - for rather good reasons) to solve the issues that democracy can lead to.

The real problem is moral - by what moral right does the majority obtain rule over the minority?

Yes. He lies for an agenda discrediting even his valid points. Don't take anything he says as more than just entertainment. Give this a read or just read up on his other lies. http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Lying-Liars-Tell-Them/dp/0452285216

<http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/0805073396>

For a different way of looking at it check out American Nations

Theorizes that the make up of the electorate is still heavily influenced by the culture of the populations that originally populated the U.S

Spoiler: it's black people.

I don't know if there's a single perfect book, because it's a difficult problem and nobody knows all the answers. Here's a decent book that tackles the politically correct part of the problem. For the politically incorrect part, you can read between the lines of books like this or you can delve into the horrible dark corners of the Internet like this. As to the validity of the politically correct and politically incorrect theories, who knows. Maybe it's a combination?

You can't bring up Skowronek and Howe without also mentioning Neustadt, one of the other major presidential scholars. Here's his most famous book.

Go for "Rise and Fall of American Growth".

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Growth-Princeton/dp/0691147728

Basic and Applied Economics by Sowell.

I also recommend It's Even Worse Than It Looks.

I'm a white guy from rural Minnesota, I do not consider myself to be of the same "culture" as a guy from SoCal, or from Alabama. I suggest you read American Nations by historian Colin Woodard, there is no single "American" culture, even among "white" Americans.

I wanna give a shout out to one of my favorite books and the last book I read as a polisci undergrad before a graduated a few years back. It's Even Worse Than It Looks by Mann and Ornstein. It's a breakdown of congressional politics and asymmetric polarization, and how we've come to such a hellish political gridlock today.

It was the last polisci book I read in college and it really brought together a lot of ideas and trends I noticed and studied, and prepared me to identify the causes at the root of Trump's rise.

Regarding polling, you're right, it doesn't give a complete picture. Often people will answer polls but not vote, or not answer polls and vote, many polls focused on the PV as opposed to the EC. They're useful tools, no doubt, but they're not perfect.

I haven't read the book Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign but from reviews of the book and other analysis, an overemphasis on campaigning based on data relative to campaigning on message, internal campaign politics to stifle constructive change, ignoring calls by Bill to focus on white blue-collar workers were issues, broadly, with the campaign.

And I agree that it's difficult to determine how much of an impact things like campaign mismanagement or Russian interference or whatnot had, but the Comey letter is something you can create a more accurate image of, regarding its impact on the election.

Here is your evidence:

http://www.amazon.com/House-Debt-Recession-Prevent-Happening/dp/022627165X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457451553&sr=8-1&keywords=house+of+debt

Hall, Robert E. 2011. "The Long Slump." American Economic Review, 101(2): 431-69
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.2.431

And for the layman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx_LWm6_6tA

I am an econ PhD. The recession being caused by financial sector is like Earth revolving around the sun at this point. There are thousands of articles about it. For starters check the bibliograhy of House of Debt book.

>you just pretended that they were and blamed them for intangible issues

Oh please. I know we are here to fry Bernie bros let's not go too much on the other direction. This is like rejecting evolution because you are annoyed with /r/atheism.

>That's an interesting read because the book I read on the subject seemed to make the argument that the brutality was quite effective.

>https://www.amazon.com/Small-Wars-Faraway-Places-Insurrection/dp/0143125958

Well yeah, the brutality was effective because as I said, you cause enough casualties, it's going to have an effect. The brutality goes beyond torture to mass killings and rape. I mostly know Burleigh for his stuff on Nazi war crimes, didn't realize he had anything recent. Even there he talks lot about the immorality of Nazi tactics.

>This is all good if the crux of my argument was the overall effectiveness of torture or the programs.

>However it isn't. The crux is that in either of these operations at some point torture CERTAINLY provided correct information. And even if it literally only happened ONCE it would disprove the original statement, and that is all that my argument hinges on.

No? Your error rate is so high that any given piece of intel derived from torture is likely wrong so you cannot know that it's accurate and rely on it without confirmation. It's hard to operate on intelligence derived from torture. The whole data set is unreliable. You might as well guess. If it happens to be right once, great, but even then, the information would be accurate despite the use of torture, not because of it.

I will give you that in the moment during an ongoing situation, torture can be effective to get intelligence quickly to end the situation. However in a protracted setting, it's not. And even in an emergency situation, asking directly and being nice to the subject will typically yield better and more reliable information, as well as prolong the subject's usefulness.

> There must be something going on other than judicial system discrimination, although I'm not arguing that doesn't occur.

i think poverty and racial bias are the 2 largest factors. poverty would be the easiest one to fix, IMO. here is a bill that would do exactly that. people in poverty are more desperate to do things (both legal and illegal) to help them and their families survive. giving them a job with decent pay will go a long way.

also, its not just police officers that have the racial bias. it could be and probably is also public defenders, attorney generals, police chiefs, judges, etc. it is the entire judicial system. this book goes into great detail about it.

> Ok. So, how will that lower black on white violent crime levels?

there could be so many explanations for why this happens. i think if you do what i mentioned (pull people out of poverty and get rid of some racial bias in the entire legal system), then this stat might be fixed a little. also, you must remember that these are the crimes that people get arrested for. the number could be less disproportionate if you include crimes that people don't get arrested for or charged with.

>Here is your evidence:
http://www.amazon.com/House-Debt-Recession-Prevent-Happening/dp/022627165X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457451553&sr=8-1&keywords=house+of+debt

Well, thank you for agreeing with me!

The book you cited literally says hows its a household debt fault led by individuals.

>Hall, Robert E. 2011. "The Long Slump." American Economic Review, 101(2): 431-69 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.2.431

• In the Great Slump that began at the end of 2007, low inflation resulted in an only slightly negative real rate when full employment called for a much lower real rate because of declines in demand. Fortunately, the inflation rate hardly responded to conditions in product and labor markets, else deflation might have occurred, with an even higher real interest rate. I concentrate on three closely related sources of declines in demand: the buildup of excess stocks of housing and consumer durables, the corresponding expansion of consumer debt that financed the buildup, and financial frictions that resulted from the decline in real-estate *
  
  Again, not the banks. The author cites housing stocks (led by consumers), expansion of consumer led debt, and the resulting decline.
  
  This isn't something that is all the banks fault - it took many parties for the recession to occur and lumping it all on one is just wrong.
  
  >I am an econ PhD. The recession being caused by financial sector is like Earth revolving around the sun at this point.
  
  Literally none of your sources agree with the claim you just made. Additionally, its very doubtful that you are a PhD based on your comments. I would recommend that next time you fake being an expert, you at least try to coordinate your claims and responses.

One big problem with Trump and defending him is that the media is incredibly uncharitable.

Temporarily halting muslim immigration until we figure out what is going on has been reported as "Trump wants to ban muslims".

Illegal immigrants are sometimes criminals and rapists (based on studies that found that between 60% and 80% of female illegal immigrants are raped by their companions or guides along the way) gets reported as "Trump says latinos are rapists".

That caveat out of the way:

His tax plan is on his website. The US corporate tax is the 3rd highest in the developed world. Many economists don't think a corporate tax is a good idea [1] [2]. His corporate tax plan includes a 10% one-time repatriation tax to incentivize reversing corporate inversions.

China practices currency manipulation. The Chinese government pracitces industrial espionage. You'll have to take my word for it, but every press conference where he's asked if he'd implement tarrifs, he dodges the question ("I'd consider it" etc.) because, in my view, he just wants to use it as leverage.

I would also recommend your read The Art of The Deal (or don't buy it and try this?) for perspective on how he uses inflammatory rhetoric and his opinion on the media.

If you have an hour of time to listen/watch something in the background, consider watching The Untruth about Donald Trump by Stefan Molyneux, a lecture that details the dishonest patterns the media has used to attack Trump.

Trying to catch stuff that hasn't been mentioned here already:

Films:

Bob Roberts (1992)

Bulworth (1998)

Primary Colors (1998)

Documentaries:

The War Room (1993)

The Century of the Self (BBC)

The Power of Nightmares (BBC)

Books:

Anything by Al Franken

Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

The Truth (with Jokes)

Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations

Other authors:

Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein

Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right
by David Neiwert

> Malaya was and is widely regarded as having hurt the counterinsurgency effort. It's actually pretty commonly referred to as an example of the negative effects of torture. It also led to negative public support and morale among the British populace.
http://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=polsci_pubs

That's an interesting read because the book I read on the subject seemed to make the argument that the brutality was quite effective.

https://www.amazon.com/Small-Wars-Faraway-Places-Insurrection/dp/0143125958

> The success, to the extent it could be called that, of Malaya, as with Phoenix, was that the Western powers indiscriminately killed and tortured so many people, it necessarily had an effect. But the torture itself wasn't effective, it was more the mass casualty rate. The torture had a net negative effect in both fronts.

>Torture objectively does not work for its stated purpose. There's just no point in employing a tactic that does not work and has such a widely recognized negative effect. If you're just going to kill a lot of people with little regard to their identity, there's simpler and more effective ways of doing so. But of course there are other moral issues with doing that.

This is all good if the crux of my argument was the overall effectiveness of torture or the programs.

However it isn't. The crux is that in either of these operations at some point torture CERTAINLY provided correct information. And even if it literally only happened ONCE it would disprove the original statement, and that is all that my argument hinges on.