American Politics Discussion Thread

[T-hawk]

This isn't accurate, that him being indicted would help him get re-elected. If Trump is going to win in 2024, he needs the "Kemp-Warnock" voters - the moderate-to-conservative white suburbanites who want to vote Republican but have a limit of how much crazy and incompetence they can tolerate.

This is correct. I know such a family of swing voters myself. These are the voters the Republicans need, and they're the ones who will take DeSantis but not Trump.

I hope Trump and co recognize this and have him stand aside to clear the way for DeSantis. Every Trump voter would come around to DeSantis, but it's not the other way around.

who's the last non-incumbent Republican who they nominated who was an average to above-average politician?

For presidential winners, the last one was Eisenhower. Seriously. You have to go that far back to find a Republican president who wasn't a legacy of a previous administration (Nixon, Bush, Bush) and was elected as a politician rather than a pop-culture figure (Reagan, Trump.)

[T-hawk]

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

I'll bold the other part of that for you. Which party is the one forcibly applying cancel culture to everything? Which party is the one destroying individual interests regarding everything like firearms, fossil fuels, economic value and prosperity via taxes and socialism, and even lives of the unborn?

[Mjmd]

The only party passing laws that the government is clamping down on speech is the Republican party.........

There is a large difference between companies saying "heh we don't want to keep printing this racist book because it makes us look bad" and a government saying "heh you can't read that book about someone having two dads". Free speech means the GOVERMENT can't stop you from saying something. Companies can decide they don't want people telling lies on their platforms that kill people.

There is a large difference between investing in new green technologies to save the planet that will also be a long term economic investment and well, we are still subsidizing fossil fuel companies, so this one is a toss up.

[Mjmd]

I'll also mention that definitions of prosperity don't include just letting the rich pay no taxes. In fact historically countries that don't tax the rich much have a very low standard of living. The US during its "great" times had very high levels of taxation on corporations and the rich.

[darrelljs]

and was elected as a politician rather than a pop-culture figure (Reagan, Trump.)

Reagan was governor of California.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

I'll bold the other part of that for you.  Which party is the one forcibly applying cancel culture to everything?  Which party is the one destroying individual interests regarding everything like firearms, fossil fuels, economic value and prosperity via taxes and socialism, and even lives of the unborn?

It's hard to read some of the posts in this thread that cherry pick negative points regarding the right while ignoring similar flaws on the left. So I won't defend the Democratic Party because they suck too...but they don't suck equally.

Darrell

[Cyneheard]

I don't think there are any swing voters left.  He's polarized the entire country and the election will come down to turnout.  I could be wrong .

Darrell

That's why I referenced Kemp-Warnock voters - which were about 8% of Georgia's electorate (assuming there were basically zero Abrams-Walker voters; yes, voters make strange decisions sometimes). That's more than enough to swing an election. And those voters are done with Trump; I'm not sure how well DeSantis actually does with them - it depends a lot on the upcoming campaign.

For T-Hawk's point on nominees - Presidential candidates are such a small sample, and let's be real, the politics of 2024 and 2000 are wildly different, much less the 1960s and 1970s. My point was that, almost every time, at every level, this GOP primary electorate is either picking:
1) The incumbent who's already in that job. This proves nothing; incumbents win primary elections all the time.
2) The least electable candidate running. Don't pick the conventional GOP candidate, pick Dr. Oz who then talks about crudité and barely lives in Pennsylvania. Don't pick the still-quite-popular Governor Hogan's preferred nominee in Maryland, pick the guy who said governor calls a "nut." Or Blake "I make ads that make me look like a serial killer who knows how to bury bodies in the desert" Masters.

For exceptions, there's really Nevada's 2 statewide races (where the GOP won the governor's race by 1.5%, ousting the incumbent, and lost the Senate seat by 1%), and I'm sure some House races that I didn't follow. But this GOP is choosing candidates who are costing their party elections again and again and again - and in many of those spots, where running someone even halfway competent would've been enough.

[Miguelito]

socialism

Public ownership of the means of production? In the US of A? Which state? Or on a federal level? Why doesn't the mainstream media tell me about that?

[Mjmd]

Socialism is the Republican scare word for any program that helps people.

[T-hawk]

Oh and I forgot the Covid mandate stuff - that's absolutely clearly one party destroying individual medical rights for what they think is a societal goal.

Cancel culture and free speech - the Biden administration was the one literally trying to enact Orwell's Ministry of Truth. Banning "misinformation" just makes you label everything that doesn't agree with you as misinformation.

Banning fossil fuel rights for "green" goals - you aren't even denying that that's fascism, you just support it when it's on your side.

For T-Hawk's point on nominees - Presidential candidates are such a small sample, and let's be real, the politics of 2024 and 2000 are wildly different, much less the 1960s and 1970s. My point was that, almost every time, at every level, this GOP primary electorate is either picking:
1) The incumbent who's already in that job. This proves nothing; incumbents win primary elections all the time.
2) The least electable candidate running.

We're agreeing - the Republicans are bad at picking electable candidates. I used the presidents to illustrate a particular subset. (and of course Reagan was CA governor, but he got there as a pop culture figure.) The Republicans are going to repeat that mistake if they let Trump run ahead of DeSantis. Trump was never all that electable in the first place - he's got a fanatical base but no appeal to swing voters - his win in 2016 was a fluke of Hillary being even less electable so that Dem supporters sat out which they won't do again.

Public ownership of the means of production? In the US of A? Which state? Or on a federal level? Why doesn't the mainstream media tell me about that?

Taxing it all after the fact amounts to the same thing. We're not exactly at socialism yet, but there's constantly pushes in that direction insidiously cloaked as do-goodism.