I’ve received a number of e-mail messages praising my post of last night. Nice, but hardly surprising, as I’ve said similar things here before, on several occasions. I would suggest in particular my posts “More Disturbing News about Sec. Clinton” and “Where I Don’t Stand.”
The latter post, by the way, makes it clear that I am not endorsing anyone. I state,
A reporter contacted me today, having read a blog post of mine, and she said she hoped to interview me as a “Trump voter.” I told her she should have read some of my other posts.
I try not to endorse any politician in this forum. It should be clear to regular readers that I admire both Sanders and Trump, but I’ve also criticized both of them. I will say this, though: In my mind, they are the ONLY two candidates in either party in whom I have any confidence that they would “do the right thing.”
(And I go on to say that “the right thing” involves far more than H-1B and green cards, such as overturning Citizens United.)
Thus my post last night was intended to be just what its title indicated, an expression of my disdain for the ignorant and uncaring Chattering Classes, rather than an endorsement of Trump. The fact is that even if I were willing to divulge such information, I myself don’t know what I will do in November. And I have often declined to vote in the general elections for president (though I always vote for the other offices). But it ought to be clear who I’m voting for in the California Democratic primary on June 7, and who I absolutely will NOT vote for in November.
Upon Closer inspection 
Completely disagree with you about “Citizens United”, the only problem with it is that it doesn’t go far enough, there should be no limits to what any citizen can contribute directly to any candidate – as long as it is disclosed. The current PAC system is corrupt from top to bottom, but that’s not the fault of “Citizen’s United”.
It’s like the H-1B issue in this way – it is always hard to find the balance, and there is no perfect solution, halfway solutions are always subject to cheating and manipulations of many kinds.
And this, if you want my opinion, is the difference between the candidates. Trump promises, with whatever low credibility, to be impossible to corrupt – that is, he does his deal making in public. Clinton has a long history of being corrupt in broad daylight, accepting $100,000,000 in bribes, between her and Bill, over the last ten years or so, for themselves, their campaigns and their foundations, WHILE being serving politicians. It’s all about corruption, and what you know about it and what you are willing to believe about it. Again, rather like the H-1B issue.
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Do you really think disclosure matters?
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You don’t like Hillary’s $100m but you think Citizens’ United is OK? Do you really think money doesn’t matter? You’ve just institutionalized bribery. We need short, government-funded elections, no lobbyist revolving door, non-partisan redistricting and a better voter rights law. Then we might get back on track for a democracy.
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Funny how “the right thing” can be either nationalist or socialist, according to this article. In other words, it’s gotten so corrupt in D.C. that before we can even talk about tax policy, immigration, and foreign affairs, we have to untangle the morass of corruption, deception, and spin. Before you can build the houses, you have to drain the swamp.
The “swamp”, however, realizes the danger and will do anything (I mean ANYTHING including war or some kind of crackdown or takeover, or engineered collapse) to prevent their nice, cozy swamp from draining, after they have worked so hard to fill it up with B.S.
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I personally believe it is in the best interest of America to have a smart and probably cunning politician in the model of Frank Underwood or Claire Underwood in “House of Cards”. Hillary Clinton does have a lot of resemblance to Claire Underwood.
You may think Hillary Clinton is less authentic or honest than Bernie sanders and has disadvantage facing the populism message of Donald Trump and/or Bernie Sanders.
but the fact is she still earned millions of more votes than Bernie Sanders and She can split poor working Americans while she keeps an obvious advantage among minorities.
Therefore, as long as Hillary can maintain this pattern, she will have the upper hand.
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The fact that she has the upper hand is precisely the problem. Cunning politicians are the ones who got us into trouble in the first place. And Bernie would be far better for minorities. As I’ve pointed out before, Bernie was out there protesting in support of poor blacks at the same time that Hillary was a conservative Republican. Yet “cunning” Hillary is perceived by blacks to be their friend.
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What did Bernie accomplish before that helped African American?
Bernie Sanders is “stand up against billionaire class” while African American want to fight against racism.
Racism is NOT just an economic issue
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So in addition to reading Trump’s mind, you read the minds of millions of African-Americans.
To my knowledge, neither Bernie nor Hillary has introduced legislation that specifically helps African-Americans. In fact, neither has anyone else. Rightly or wrongly, it just isn’t an issue of interest in Congress these days; as immigration increased over the years, Congress turned its attention to the immigrant-dominant minorities. On the contrary, many of the immigrants harbor unhealthy attitudes towards blacks.
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I do not read millions of African American’s mind but my former room mate in college is African American and I know maybe a little bit about it.(of course I am not expert and I only speak from my experience)
There is a reason (again from my experience) why black lives matter activists try to protest Bernie Sanders. Racism is never just an economic issue but Bernie Sanders is only talking about general economic inequality. That is very condescending and that shows Bernie Sanders never understands what is actually at stake.
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I was present a few minutes before (but not during) the Black Lives Matter people disrupted Bernie’s speech in Seattle, so I’ve paid particular attention to that incident. As I recall, the very first statement they made (according to the Seattle TV broadcast) was along the lines of “Our protest here is NOT about Senator Sanders.”
It’s good that you had exposure to a black roommate, which is far more than most students from China get. But a young black at CMU? He is just not representative. In addition to the usual youthful minority emphasis on racism, this guy almost certainly came from a solid middle class family, and thus doesn’t see economics as much of an issue.
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As a big supporter of the military, I believe her actions in regard to Benghazi that are being revealed are unconscionable. She is unqualified to be the Commander in Chief as she has demonstrated that she will deliberately place our brave men and women in harms way when it is unnecessary and without proper support. When she asks “what difference does it make now”, I say that it makes a difference to me then, now and forever in the future.
Her email practices were designed to bypass the transparency requirements of FOIA. (FOIA is a wonderful tool to find out what is happening. Unfortunately when I sought information on several grants, the information was deemed to be confidential and not provided.) The fact she deleted tens of thousands of emails that we are to believe were personal is suspicious.
I applaud Bernie for being true to his long stated beliefs even though I do not agree with many of his positions. I believe he is most likely to stand firm if he were to be elected.
Unfortunately, the low information voters will likely decide the election based on name recognition and party affiliation rather than on the positions of the candidates.
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I accept corruption as a fact of life, but Hillary having close ties to TCS is really stooping low. TCS is a bit of a joke in India and all my smarter friends in India disdained working for TCS/ Cognizant/ Infosys over working for new startups like Flipkart or multinational banks. Most of the smarter people who worked there escaped through the F1 visa route.
It’s not the fact that someone is corruptible that is scary, but how little it took to corrupt them.
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Norm,
You wrote, “…I have often declined to vote in the general elections for president…”
Why? I rarely even consider voting for a major party candidate for president (and seldom for any other office). But I don’t abstain. I vote for a third party candidate who I think is decent. If I can’t find one on the ballot, then I cast a write-in vote.
Steve
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I must say I’m disappointed lately in the quality of this blog, especially the increasing political points of view…I’ve been a follower since the beginning and before that a happy receiver of emails from you, Prof. Matloff.
Here is the downside of Sen. Sanders and Mr. Trump: they disdain PACs and we all love to hate PACs, especially those that support political forces we don’t like. But using your own money or collecting individual contributions for a specific individual politician is NOT SUSTAINABLE because it means we only have very rich candidates like Trump plus those that can acquire a lot of money from small individuals..
My local nominee to Congress cannot get enough money that way….but as soon as Bernie might decide to share the money he’s collected HIS ORGANIZATION MUST LEGALLY CREATE A PAC. A lot of Clinton money has gone to other Democratic politicians and causes. Oh, yes, he could individually interview everyone running and make individual choices…but then they’d be too beholden personally to Bernie!!! Otherwise what happens to his movement if he retires or becomes unable to serve for other reasons? Politics needs some organization for CONTINUITY purposes. Bernie is not a “messiah”; he is a leader of a movement that needs money to function.
It’s necessary to collect money as a group and make group decisions about how to allocate the money.. This is why I disagree with you, Dr. Matloff…DISCLOSURE IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO BE FAIR. Hillary Clinton is the only person vilified now for PAC money and people can assume that it is all a bribe because they have no idea who contributed what to whom and for what purpose. People can easily say that she was bribed for $100,000,000 because we don’t know who contributed what.
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I am certainly not against disclosure. I am simply pointing out that it does not really solve the problem.
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Hillary Clinton was on the board of Wal-mart from 1986-1992. That is not a good sign of things to come if she is elected President of the United States.
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