American Politics Discussion Thread

[GeneralKilCavalry]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...ss/616644/

Great read.

[Jowy]

Gov Whitmer after failed kidnapping plot against her:

"Our head of state has spent the past seven months denying science, ignoring his own health experts, stoking distrust, fomenting anger, and giving comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division. Just last week, the President of the United States stood before the American people and refused to condemn white supremacists and hate groups like these two Michigan militia groups. 'Stand back and stand by' he told them. 'Stand back and stand by'. Hate groups heard the president's words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry, as a call to action. When our leaders speak, their words matter. They carry weight. When our leaders meet with, encourage, (and) fraternize with domestic terrorists, they legitimize their actions, and they are complicit."

Sorry mods for breaking my silence, but this is important for everyone to understand.

[SevenSpirits]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...ss/616644/

Great read.

The author may have a good point but the opening example just confuses me. What do they want Nancy Pelosi to do exactly?

“You are not in North Korea; you are not in Turkey … You are in the United States of America. It is a democracy, so why don’t you just try for a moment to honor your oath of office to the Constitution of the United States?” Only moments later, Pelosi dismissed calls that she leverage her role as speaker to shut down the U.S. government in an effort to block Trump’s incoming nominee for the Supreme Court.

Assuming "shutting down the government" is even a thing she can do and that it would stop Trump's supreme court nominee, I don't think a reasonable person would think that doing so would be honoring her own oath of office.

[ipecac]

Nonsense. The parties don't have different policy priorities, that's why it is fair to say both parties are similar. They are both profoundly anti-labor, with only a few democrats supportive of labor; both parties are pro-war (republicans hate china, democrats hate russia, both have different priorities over which middle eastern kids they want to kill so as to radicalize those who survive); both parties are in hock to the military industrial complex - the republicans are in bed with many of the contractors for DoD, democrats have become the military intelligence party (why do you think fairfax county votes democrat!). The Obama presidency was your standard investment-bank controlled gov't. Obamacare was a modified version of romneycare.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the US population looks like.

Democracy in the US tends to obscure the fact that the actual priorities of the parties are mostly different from the ones of their voters. As a simple exercise in tautology for the reader, which priorities do the parties actually prioritise, their actual ones or the voters'?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...ss/616644/

This tension underscores a deeper paradox of liberalism that has arguably reached its apex in the Trump era. Since the president’s election four years ago, the political and intellectual leaders of America’s supposedly reform-minded opposition have issued warnings about the existential threat that Trump poses to democracy. Amid it all, senior Democrats have mostly maintained both the regular operation of government and a standard of congressional etiquette that connotes normalcy more than it does any state of exception: applauding the president’s speeches, approving his military budgets, awarding him new domestic spying powers, and even fast-tracking his judicial nominees. A line from one 2019 CNBC report detailing the overwhelming House approval of Trump’s marquee NAFTA renegotiation sums up the absurdity of this posture: “Democrats also wanted to show they can work with Trump only a day after they voted to make him the third president impeached in American history.”

Great read.

'They're actually working with Trump, don't they know their voters are dead against it?' Why the party is not doing what the voters want for the umpteenth time should again be a simple exercise.

[Mjmd]

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

- Winston Churchill


Mainly because most other forms of government devolve into kingships/dictatorships ect pretty easily. Then once power is concentrated eventually there are succession issues even if in the short term it might look better (great leaders). This usually wastes resources of the country and weakens it greatly. Think of how many empires have fallen after a leader died and then civil war broke out after. Also, at least in a democracy you can vote out horrendous idiots and whichever party is at that time trying to abuse and consolidate power the most. Not that most voters think this way.......


"The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

[darrelljs]

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

"The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

Funny juxtaposition .

I've always had a fondness for meritocracy, although I have no idea whether its ever been successful in practice. Would the Confucians systems of using exams to select the best & brightest for official posts count? Any other historical examples people are aware of?

Darrell

[Mjmd]

Who sets the test? What systems do you have to grade the tests impartially? How do you test leadership abilities (among other positive attributes)?

Like communism I think this would be another exercise in wishful thinking that humans wouldn't grab for power and try to maintain it at all costs. Just think how all political parties use and manipulate data as is.

[Charriu]

Who sets the test? What systems do you have to grade the tests impartially? How do you test leadership abilities (among other positive attributes)?

Hunger games

[ipecac]

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

"The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

Funny juxtaposition .

It starts with the standard coping reflex, and ends up close to acceptance.

I've always had a fondness for meritocracy, although I have no idea whether its ever been successful in practice. Would the Confucians systems of using exams to select the best & brightest for official posts count? Any other historical examples people are aware of?

Singapore, allegedly, sort of. There's a funny story involving NN Taleb

During his visit, he also spoke to government officials who were apparently keen to elicit his views on Singapore and its strategic direction. He is likely to have made them sit up, as he turns conventional wisdom on its head, particularly on the issue of education, highly prized in a city where good grades and degrees are seen as a passport to success.

Not so, says Mr Taleb. "What I'm saying is a bit controversial for you guys, given the respect you have for education. It's good to have a class of people who are educated. But education is the enemy of entrepreneurship. If you start having a high level of education, you start hiring people based on school success.

"School success is predictive of future school success. You hire an A student if you want them to take an exam, but you want other things like street smarts. This gets repressed if you emphasise too- much education."

'Give us wisdom about our country, wise sage'

'Your whole system is absurd'

is never invited back

[Brian Shanahan]

If the 2 parties didnt have such a stranglehold on this country, a wealthy moderate faction could easily sweep thru.

The Dems are the wealthy "moderate" faction. That's the problem, tye US system is two bald right wingers fighting over a comb.