American Politics Discussion Thread

[Jowy]

Meanwhile over here the president is arguing that the president shouldn't have the power to pardon, that it's a relic from the era of kings.

The attitude of "this is normal, nothing to see here" just moves the goal posts further. Trump has done a lot to normalize some insane things that presidents should not get away with.

[Commodore]

My cynicism thresholds after living under Literally Hitler for twelve years, punctuated by eight years of The Islamic Antichrist, are sky-high at this point. Sorry, I ran out of outrage last century. If you don't think that every president since Washington has pardoned "cronies and war criminals"...well, I'm inspired by such innocence.

[MJW (ya that one)]

I shift GA-R/S to tilt D in response to JMC poll. Polling was so bad this year that there's no way I'll shift to Lean D, unless someone eats a baby on live TV or something.

[darrelljs]

Or shoots someone in Times Square .

Darrell

[Bobchillingworth]

Depending on how much lenience one is inclined to grant toward the consequences catastrophic incompetence, one could argue that Trump almost certainly managed to kill a least a few people on 5th Avenue.


Promises kept!

[Miguelito]

I'm just getting a little tired of random foreigners from broken nations, whose opinions are unmoored from reality, feeling entitled to boldly issue critiques on the U.S. political system and lecture us on how we should be voting.  I don't mean folks like you, or Jowy, or Nic, or others who are in all likelihood significantly better informed than most actual Americans, and whose commentary is constructive.  I'm talking about someone advocating people vote for a third party candidate, or regurgitating idiocy about nonexistent electoral fraud from RT and the like, or suggesting that states should implement the most stringent voter ID measures possible because otherwise people will vote ten times in a row or whatever (I should note that those last two aren't references to Boro).

Been a while, but I think I was the one who had brought up the ID issue, so from the broken nation of Germany (would I necessarily disagree?):
I get that voter fraud is a rightwing talking point in the US without much foundation in reality, and I understand that voter ID is part of that circus, but I was asking for these reasons (and not actually suggesting that something should be enacted, just planted a scenario which I asked US folks' opinion about):

• Honest interest, as the whole problematic is pretty exotic. I just can't think of another country without a national ID for everybody (the UK it seems?) , and have trouble understanding why it is an issue, especially in times of NSA and social media.
  
• While, as I said, I accept that it's a made up talking point, the ID issue comes up in discussion everytime there is an election in the US, and I find it rather hard to contest, because the argument that a voter should identify themselves in a simple process, and that if there is no relevant fraud, nobody should be against that, seems quite compelling (to me). And apparently it is pretty effective as well, as it gets repeated so much. Again, I get that there is a host of issues with poor people having difficulty to get an ID, voter registration, purging of voter rollls (mindboggling!), but to me all of that just calls for a simple system where every citizen has an ID and with that is entitled to vote, instead of making oneself constantly attackable to the accusation of supporting fraud.
  

[Bobchillingworth]

Oh, I hadn't realized you had written anything about voter ID, I was actually referencing a post from Mack where he advocated for strict voter ID measures by way of questioning what otherwise was stopping the same person from voting multiple times in a row.


But yes, I don't think there would be a problem with a voter ID system where the government issued everyone a photo ID card and ensured replacements were easily obtained. The U.S. doesn't have a national photo ID system though, except of course for passports (which are optional, and can be expensive), and some states go out of their way to make IDs difficult for certain Americans to obtain, and/or implement bullshit voter ID requirements like declaring student ID cards aren't valid proof, but firearms club memberships are.


Also, as the past few months have clearly demonstrated, no standard or threshold of evidence is required to be accused of supporting or perpetrating fraud, and I think we're well past the point where it makes sense to attempt constructive dialogue with people who habitually argue in bad faith.

[darrelljs]

So I've been ruminating over the holidays and feel like putting pen to paper.  I don't claim any novel ideas here and I'm sure I have much wrong.

I'd start by stating that I see essentially two kinds of Republicans.  First, there are the Reagan Republicans, whose values took over the party in the 80s.  Broadly their foreign policy centers around exporting American values (by force if necessary) and protecting American business interests (again by force if necessary).  They favor a smaller government and are pro business (globalization, trade treaties, de-regulation, etc.).  Over the 90s and beyond social aspects gained prominence as a cheap way to widen the base.

Second are the Trump Republicans.  I was so attracted to Andrew Yang's candidacy due to how clearly he articulated truths that once stated seemed obvious; a) between outsourcing and automation, working class Americans have lost 15 million jobs, with more to come, and b) these same Americans see the Democratic Party as having "taken on this role of the coastal urban elites who are more concerned about policing various cultural issues than improving their way of life that has been declining for years."  Trump Republicans are essentially populists, representing those that feel left behind in the wake of the changes wrought by the Information Age.  They are pro white (crossing the line to xenophobia and racism in some instances) and anti globalization.  They exploit their constituents' desire to rewind the world in a way that's not possible, but easy to promise.  Democracy is optional.

I've been posting for a while that the polar realities Americans live in is the disease, but I'm starting to realize its a symptom of these trends, which Trump exploited to win the 2016 election.  In fact as reprehensible as I find Trump, all he did was accelerate something that was already inevitable.  It will be very interesting to see what happens next.  The vote on 6-Jan will be the clearest indication of how many Reagan Republicans are left, and how many Trump Republicans there are.

Darrell

P.S. What I'd like to happen is for the #nevertrump movement to go from a trickle to a flood.  If I'm a Reagan Republican I don't like my chances in a primary against a Trump Republican.  The resulting influx would shift the Democratic Party to the right, at least on fiscal and foreign policy issues.  This could in turn induce the left wing to form their own party of Social Democrats.  And we finally have my three party system with a centrist, competent party governing .

[Cyneheard]

I'm just getting a little tired of random foreigners from broken nations, whose opinions are unmoored from reality, feeling entitled to boldly issue critiques on the U.S. political system and lecture us on how we should be voting.  I don't mean folks like you, or Jowy, or Nic, or others who are in all likelihood significantly better informed than most actual Americans, and whose commentary is constructive.  I'm talking about someone advocating people vote for a third party candidate, or regurgitating idiocy about nonexistent electoral fraud from RT and the like, or suggesting that states should implement the most stringent voter ID measures possible because otherwise people will vote ten times in a row or whatever (I should note that those last two aren't references to Boro).

Been a while, but I think I was the one who had brought up the ID issue, so from the broken nation of Germany (would I necessarily disagree?):
I get that voter fraud is a rightwing talking point in the US without much foundation in reality, and I understand that voter ID is part of that circus, but I was asking for these reasons (and not actually suggesting that something should be enacted, just planted a scenario which I asked US folks' opinion about):

• Honest interest, as the whole problematic is pretty exotic. I just can't think of another country without a national ID for everybody (the UK it seems?) , and have trouble understanding why it is an issue, especially in times of NSA and social media.
  
• While, as I said, I accept that it's a made up talking point, the ID issue comes up in discussion everytime there is an election in the US, and I find it rather hard to contest, because the argument that a voter should identify themselves in a simple process, and that if there is no relevant fraud, nobody should be against that, seems quite compelling (to me). And apparently it is pretty effective as well, as it gets repeated so much. Again, I get that there is a host of issues with poor people having difficulty to get an ID, voter registration, purging of voter rollls (mindboggling!), but to me all of that just calls for a simple system where every citizen has an ID and with that is entitled to vote, instead of making oneself constantly attackable to the accusation of supporting fraud.
  

Voter ID gets sticky in a few ways:
1) The US doesn’t have a National ID system. And we saw situations (Alabama is one) where they passed voter ID rules then removed a lot of Dept of Motor Vehicle offices from majority-Black areas to make it harder for them to get their photo ID. If an ID was provided to everyone this would be less of an issue but it’s not, and the people pushing these rules also push ways to make it harder for the “wrong” people to vote.

2) For absentee/mail-in votes, there’s been discussion of requiring people to submit a photocopy of their voter ID with their ballot. If you don’t have a printer, or have limited tech expertise where taking a phone photo, emailing it to yourself and printing is difficult, that’s a hardship, especially right now.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Early voting data puts GOP in big hole. I shift races to Lean D. Still DEMs are one seat sort due to Joe Manchin. Easiest way to get one more seat was for Hetikamp to make a meaningless abortion vote in 2018, which would have kept Cramer out of the race, and beat up potato farmer Tom Campbell. It obvious she made that selfish vote in order to not be a second-class Senator because if this was about standing up for her beliefs she would have attacked Berg in the 2012 race.