American Politics Discussion Thread

[darrelljs]

Hey boys I'm back from the capitol, as a card carrying member of antifa you would not believe how easy it was to dupe Trump supporters into charging the barricades and beating each other to death with fire extinguishers. All you gotta do is wear the hat. I am surprised they worked out that it was actually antifa who was actually responsible for the capitol attack.

Gaetz called you out by name.  It's amazing the narrative some people peddle .  I'm trying to decide if he and Hawley are an improvement over Trump, or if they will be more dangerous because they have a veneer of humanity.

In other news, it seems half of Republicans polled approve of the those storming the capital.  About half don't.  Do those that don't continue to associate with those that do ?

Edit: And somehow, 52% of Republicans think Biden is to blame, compared to 28% for Trump. I'd love to see how that correlates with the split in good/bad.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

The Nov/Jan D vote went 2,473,633 for Biden, 2,262,523 for Ossoff (8.5% drop), 2,281,671 for Warnock (7.8% drop). The R vote went 2,461,854 for Trump, 2,211,865 for Perdue (10.1% drop), 2,192,776 for Loeffler (10.9% drop).

We can thank Trump and Sidney Powell for those extra few percent.

Darrell

[superdeath]

IA should be an open seat, because Grassley would be 89, but he might run again.

There needs to be an age limit on this. Grassley is far too old to be able to represent me or any other Iowan that isnt in a nursing home.

I would love an age limit. It doesn't help that discussing a candidate's age is verboten.

The age limit would be fairly high - but "can't be elected if you're 80+ years old" would prevent these egregious situations from occurring. And no, a lower age limit just isn't plausible - especially as medical care gets better. 

An age limit is a much better idea than term limits for legislators - look at Michigan for an example of that going poorly. If you tell a 40-year old Congressman that they can't run for re-election "because they've been in Washington too long," they're just going to make sure they get a good job in the private sector when they're done, and that usually means "giving the lobbyists what they want." It also hurts when there's zero institutional knowledge - having some members who worked through, say, the 2010 ACA fight is really helpful when health care comes up again. Writing good legislation on a complex issue is hard, and you don't want to only have the staff and lobbyists know how things did/didn't work last time around.

70 should be a strict cut off point. Although i personally want it to be 65/social security age. These crusty old fucks need to go home and let someone that has lived in the actual technological/real world do the work. I would LOVE for this 35yrs old or whatever age limit to be president/ect to be lifted. Dropped down to 25 or so.

[Brian Shanahan]

I suppose if there's a silver lining to today, it's that the combination of the Democrats taking the senate combined with the savagery on display from the Capitol rioters will likely help discredit Trumpism as a political force.

I want to believe this, but from the start of Trump's candicacy, sophisticated and successful pols have acted in accordance with Trump because they perceive it to be in their interest.  I assume that interest is to be reelected or to otherwise increase their personal political power.  I'm not saying that all, or any, GOP House members or Senators necessarily support authoritarianism.  Pols are fundamentally inclined to attempt to act in a way to get reelected, for money, or for power. 

It saddens me that I don't think any of what happened today changes this calculation for many pols.  Even after the MAGA occupation, 121 GOP House members objected to the Arizona certification.  That was a reduction from the ~145 that signed on to the crazy Texas lawsuit, but still an absurd amount.  Then Josh Hawley still thought it was worthwhile to sign onto the PA objection, even though no debate took place in the Senate.  What a profile in courage, Mr. Hawley.

Your first part is because outside of saying the quiet bits out loud, Trump's policy has been republican policy since the 80's, racist, anti-democratic, pro-corporate welfare and stymying any social prgoress that Americans want made.

I've taken up a slogan that's all too appropriate if the United States wants to enter the ranks of democratic nations: Factio Republicanus delenda est!

[Brian Shanahan]

Murkowski is:

1) Calling on Trump to resign
2) Considering switching to an Independent (which would mean she'd caucus with the Dems).

https://www.adn.com/politics/2021/01/08/...epublican/

If the Dem leadership were any way intelligent they'd tell her where to get off. She's spent four years enabling Trump, now she wants to get off the tiger because it might hurt her personally?

[darrelljs]

I hear you but unfortunately the situation is so dire right now, I don't think they can afford righteous indignation.

Darrell

[Commodore]

I hear you but unfortunately the situation is so dire right now, I don't think they can afford righteous indignation.

Darrell

I'm confused, what situation is dire currently? And who, anywhere, is foregoing righteous indignation? Truly, genuinely curious.

[MJW (ya that one)]

NC: I disagree with you assessment

KY: Never competitive, see: https://www.rollcall.com/2019/07/11/kent...his-again/ Inside Elections put KY at Solid R and never moved it for the entire cycle.
SC: Polls were steady, so it was never close to begin with
ME: Gideon had a big poll lead. However, she rarely broke 50% even considering RCV. Collins won because Pro-Life GOPers who don't like her (and so don't bother to select her when polled), voted to her to spite Bloomberg. It was not a blowout because of RCV; Linn even explicitly said to vote Gideon #2. The vast majority of people who didn't respond to polling are Pro-Life who are going to vote for her anyway (edit: and only look polls that consider RCV and head-to-head polls) ; so if you add them to Collins you get the picture.
GA: GOP just cannot deal with Atlanta long term; like VA GOP cannot deal with DC. If they ran in MS/SC they would have been crushed too. Abrams just wants to pick up credit to further her career. She would have ran for Senate if she didn't want stay out in order to be able to be picked for VP.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Murkowski is:

1) Calling on Trump to resign
2) Considering switching to an Independent (which would mean she'd caucus with the Dems).

https://www.adn.com/politics/2021/01/08/...epublican/

If the Dem leadership were any way intelligent they'd tell her where to get off.  She's spent four years enabling Trump, now she wants to get off the tiger because it might hurt her personally?

DEMs not filibustering everything was an explicit endorsement of Trump, which is far worse. Yes, it would make it obvious that there will be no reconciliation and give Trump a rubber-stamp Congress for 2 years, but even through something bad will happen to you if you make the choice you still made the choice. Your already way over the line so not picking up Murkowski is throwing away a seat for no reason.

[Jowy]

Republicans are planning more riots on the 17th (Q-day apparently) and 20th (inauguration). Many of the Proud Nazis are jailed or on no-fly lists, but we shall see how many terrorists we are actually dealing with. Most Republicans in that rally were peaceful, but they also didn't see anything wrong in the domestic terrorist attack, so who knows what they'll do.