I didn’t catch the vice presidential debate. What happened? The transcript suggests that mostly the VP candidates talked about the presidential candidates rather than about what each might do personally. Is this conventional?
The transcript shows a long discussion about police, which seemed odd because running police departments is mostly done by states and cities, no? Most interesting to me was Pence’s comment: “Police officers are the best of us.” Can that be true? Pence implies that it is because they risk being killed: “African-American, Asian, Latino, Hispanic, they put their lives on the line every single day.” But the risk of death for a police officer is negligible compared to the risk incurred by a front-line combat soldier. Why wouldn’t it be “Combat infantry second lieutenants are the best of us” if the standard is risking one’s life for fellow citizens?
Kaine presents himself as the defender of women: “Donald Trump [should apologize] for calling women slobs, pigs, dogs, disgusting.” A scholar told me that in the old days we presented our enemies as subhuman, e.g., portraying the Japanese during World War II as monkeys. Now we point to their treatment of women and say that we are going to rush in with our military to defend those women. Kaine seems to be doing the same thing domestically.
Pandering to voters by telling them that they are going to get great stuff from the government but won’t have to pay for it with taxes seems to still be in style. The moderator: “According to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, neither of your economic plans will reduce the growing $19 trillion gross national debt. In fact, your plans would add even more to it.” Pence seems to think that Americans are going to get off their sofas, put down the Xbox controllers, and return to the labor force: “when you get the economy growing, Elaine, that’s when you can deal with the national debt. When we get back to 3.5 percent to 4 percent growth with Donald Trump’s plan will do, then we’re going to have the resources to meet our nation’s needs at home and abroad, and we’re going to have the ability to bring down the national debt.” But he doesn’t say that he will scale back the programs listed in Book Review: The Redistribution Recession that make it irrational for Americans to work (or encourage states to adjust child support guidelines so that it becomes less profitable to have sex with a dermatologist than to go to college and work).
Kaine promises a Soviet-style planned economy for achieving economic growth: “First thing we do is we invest in manufacturing, infrastructure, and research in the clean energy jobs of tomorrow. Second thing is we invest in our workforce, from pre-K education to great teachers to debt-free college and tuition-free college for families that make less than $125,000 a year.” The “we” here seems to be the government’s central planners. “Third, we promote fairness by raising the minimum wage, so you can’t work full-time and be under the poverty level, and by paying women equal pay for equal work.” The central planners will decide how much each American should get paid, just as was done in the Soviet system. As the Democrats are solidly in the lead I would say that this demonstrates the continuing desire of Americans to enjoy a planned economy (see “Citizens for a Planned Economy”).
It seemed as though mostly the candidates talked about stuff that is too complex and technical for the average voter to know or care about. Was there an obvious winner?
[Meanwhile my Facebook feed continues to be filled with hatred of Donald Trump and celebration of Hillary’s wisdom. Hillary supporters have come to the conclusion that all Trump supporters are either stupid or sexist/racist or both. This makes some statistical sense because less than half of the voting population supports Trump and roughly half of Americans are less intelligent than average. I wonder if anyone has followed up by administering an IQ test to voters to determine if in fact IQ can be used to predict voting behavior.]
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