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There are so many problems with this response. Mostly related to your inexplicable efforts to ascribe meaning that was not conveyed in the OP comment. I won't g

There are so many problems with this response. Mostly related to your inexplicable efforts to ascribe meaning that was not conveyed in the OP comment. I won't go through your entire wall of text, because it is an emotional response to a salient and accurate neutral analysis. But I do want to point out that your post seems to place an inordinate amount of trust in our current set of elected officials. For example, your assertion that candidates do not hide behind secret plans. What a silly, and frankly incorrect, assertion. Many of our current president's policies, foreign and domestic, were opaque and largely summarized by his now-infamous regurgitation, "you'll find out - after I'm elected."

comex 9y ago
Regarding secret plans, I apologize for writing unclearly. I did not mean to imply that candidates lack secret plans, but that voters lack them. I was pointing out that in a criminal interrogation, the interrogatee (if guilty) likely made secret plans for the crime that they’re now being interrogated about, and may have some primal urge to show off by explaining how good those plans were. However, there’s no directly equivalent motivation for a voter to switch to a different faction, since the voter likely doesn’t have any secrets to show off to the new group. There may be exceptions. (There are also other motivations to reveal one’s secrets in an interrogation besides showing off, and perhaps I should have been more general. In the first example in the article, for instance, it seems less about showing off and more about finding a willing recipient for Diola’s political diatribe - premised on explaining why he did it, but apparently including enough of what he did and planned to satisfy the interrogator. But anyway.) Regarding othermkn’s comment, I’m not sure what meaning you think I incorrectly read into it. The first paragraph is pretty neutral, as it talks only about what voters perceive - and it’s inarguable that many voters in 2016 felt ignored by the ‘political class’ or elites. However, the second paragraph states outright that “the parties seem to want to continue in their disdain for voters”, which implies that the parties objectively did disdain voters, something I question (at least when it comes to the Democratic Party). I further stated: > The comment also implies that future candidates like Bernie would be “good news” who could overcome the elite/ordinary rift The comment makes explicit that continued disdain is “bad news”, implying that overcoming it would be good. It technically doesn’t state outright that Bernie’s message itself was “good news”, as opposed to the fact that his candidacy showed that outsiders can get “as far as he did”. But I thought it could be reasonably inferred, given the resonance between the rest of the comment and the message of Bernie and many of his fans. I went on to be slightly more speculative: > presumably by blowing up the existing establishment as Bernie meant to (and to some extent did). But I don’t think it’s a reach to say that if (a) you think the elites disdain voters and (b) you praise outsider candidacies, then your goal is indeed to get the elites out of power (not just change their minds or something).

comex 9y ago

Regarding secret plans, I apologize for writing unclearly. I did not mean to imply that candidates lack secret plans, but that voters lack them. I was pointing out that in a criminal interrogation, the interrogatee (if guilty) likely made secret plans for the crime that they’re now being interrogated about, and may have some primal urge to show off by explaining how good those plans were. However, there’s no directly equivalent motivation for a voter to switch to a different faction, since the voter likely doesn’t have any secrets to show off to the new group. There may be exceptions. (There are also other motivations to reveal one’s secrets in an interrogation besides showing off, and perhaps I should have been more general. In the first example in the article, for instance, it seems less about showing off and more about finding a willing recipient for Diola’s political diatribe - premised on explaining why he did it, but apparently including enough of what he did and planned to satisfy the interrogator. But anyway.) Regarding othermkn’s comment, I’m not sure what meaning you think I incorrectly read into it. The first paragraph is pretty neutral, as it talks only about what voters perceive - and it’s inarguable that many voters in 2016 felt ignored by the ‘political class’ or elites. However, the second paragraph states outright that “the parties seem to want to continue in their disdain for voters”, which implies that the parties objectively did disdain voters, something I question (at least when it comes to the Democratic Party). I further stated: > The comment also implies that future candidates like Bernie would be “good news” who could overcome the elite/ordinary rift The comment makes explicit that continued disdain is “bad news”, implying that overcoming it would be good. It technically doesn’t state outright that Bernie’s message itself was “good news”, as opposed to the fact that his candidacy showed that outsiders can get “as far as he did”. But I thought it could be reasonably inferred, given the resonance between the rest of the comment and the message of Bernie and many of his fans. I went on to be slightly more speculative: > presumably by blowing up the existing establishment as Bernie meant to (and to some extent did). But I don’t think it’s a reach to say that if (a) you think the elites disdain voters and (b) you praise outsider candidacies, then your goal is indeed to get the elites out of power (not just change their minds or something).