American Politics Discussion Thread

[Jowy]

What else would you expect to happen?  When all you ever get is "evil" screamed at you ever louder, you don't buckle under to the screaming and purging, you fight back harder.  And Trump is still the closest thing of any to a leader of that fight.

I'd be happy to sign on with a Reagan or even Obama style great communicator, but there isn't any anywhere.  Both sides now communicate only to their base, as they've learned that the most effective tactic is to whip up the frenzy against the worst extremists of the opposition.

Bad news drives out good, like bad money drives out good.  Humans have proven they respond most to inflammatory and inciteful discourse, not to reasoned discussion and consensus.  Humans are driven by fear, and the news and social media profit by weaponizing that.  This is never getting fixed as long as the media channels profit by turning everyone against each other.

I used evil to describe the Republican politicians, not the supporters. I do believe the majority of Republican supporters act out of ignorance rather than malice. The politicians I expect to be knowingly acting against what's best for the people for their selfish reasons, usually money and power. Though I suppose there are already a couple of Q-Anon supporters and a Sandy Hook denier representing the Republicans.

[Bobchillingworth]

Well, I for one refuse to bow to the whims of those who would see the soul of our great nation sacrificed on the altar to Political Correctness.


Snowflake Trump supporters object to being called "evil" because it hurts their feelings? Fuck their feelings! We have to have the courage to call out what we're seeing for what it is: White Nationalist Domestic Terrorism. How can you fight a thing if you aren't even willing to name it?


For what word could there be for those who support the torture of innocent children, the callous waste of hundreds of thousands of lives for petty political gain, a deadly insurrection against the sacred principles at the heart of American democracy? Or a party which refuses to reject or even rebuke a woman who mocks school shooting survivors, propagates a blood libel, and openly proclaims her intent to murder her colleagues?


It is Evil. Trump's supporters are evil, the Republican Party is Evil, all those who embrace it's malefic designs on these United States of America are evil, and no force on God's Earth shall prevent me from saying so.

[T-hawk]

Bob, you're spreading every bit as much hate as those you accuse. You are the reason the Trumpists exist.

[Bobchillingworth]

Sure, T-hawk. And to paraphrase Bin Laden, if the U.S. hadn't been so mean, all those nice people in New York, Arlington, and PA wouldn't have gotten hurt. Can't ever forget who the real victims are here, right?

[darrelljs]

Just to be clear, I concur that Trump and his toadies within the Republican Party are actually textbook definition evil.  I just disagree that Reaganism and the conservative movement were evil, stipulating that some of their policies are.  There's some truth that the incessant attacks have fostered the "us vs. them" mentality that Trump exploited to achieve what now looks like a complete takeover of the GOP (perhaps for the Kremlin), but I reject that as a valid justification for the leaderships' complicity.  Better to have fought & lost.

Darrell

[Commodore]

Any Dutch here? What's up with Holland right now?

Dutch here, past sunday there were protests against imposed curfew that went in saturday. Last time that nationwide curfew was imposed, was in WOII when Netherlands were occupied by Nazi's.
Now cabinet Rutte decided that lockdown didn't work well enough despite decreasing amount Covid cases here in Netherlands, citing more contagious British version of covid as reason and imposed curfew upon Dutch people.
Also Rutte's cabinet did resign several weeks due supplement affair where many parents (especially people of ethnic background) were duped, that affair damaged trust in government and set bad blood among people.
In March there is elections, till that time cabinet Rutte still governs over Netherlands with extra powers due Covid crisis.

Past sunday people protested against curfew, among protesters there were people who only came to demonstration for rioting and looting, especially Eindhoven was hit badly by rioters/looters past sunday.
The shocking images of Eindhoven riots at news sunday evening inspired youth mainly from poorer parts of various cities in Netherlands to do same. They were bored from able to doing nothing due lockdown and imposed curfew was last straw.
Sunday evening and monday evening there were rioting and looting in various cities, police got diffculty to deal with them all same time. But at tuesday evening police with some help of local residents were able to keep down any disturbance and since then it has been calm in Netherlands.

Next round of protests are excepted next weekend.

Thanks for that, very interesting. Good luck staying out of things, man. I was hearing about a dropped bridge even, didn't know how it was on the ground.

[Cyneheard]

Bob, you're spreading every bit as much hate as those you accuse.  You are the reason the Trumpists exist.

That's a lame excuse and you know it.

January 6th crossed a line and you know it.

Pretending that criticizing ANYONE who supported the events of the 6th, or continues to support those responsible (which includes Trump) is beyond the pale is BS and you know it.

No, it is not the left's fault that the right decided the reaction to losing a free and fair election was to storm the Capitol while chanting Hang Mike Pence...and then circling the wagons around protecting everyone who aided and abetted.

The correct response to "that's wrong" isn't "let's double down and do more of it."

And another point - January 6th wasn't a single event that popped out of nowhere.

[Mjmd]

There is some hate, but the more historical driving force behind overthrowing democracies is fear. Fear of losing power. Fear of Trumps political power and dividing the party. Fear of the other side / what the other side is going to do. Insert strongman X says "we are the only ones who can save you from the awful things party Y might do / has done".

It isn't like there isn't always fear mongering and hate though between political parties. Each time a government is overthrown IT IS A CHOICE to go along with it. The people involved of course never see themselves as evil. It all seems justified based on their fear of the 'other'. That does not however diminish the fact that it is a choice. Republicans have chosen this path. You can either choose to be blind to this or accept that. The problem is of course people are historically awful at admitting they are wrong or what they believed in is wrong. Or what they believed in has been horribly corrupted.

[T-hawk]

No, it is not the left's fault that the right decided the reaction to losing a free and fair election

This is the point that the criticizers don't get. They didn't react that way to a free and fair election. They reacted that way to the fraud. They weren't trying to overthrow democracy. They were trying to save it.

Whether there was enough fraud to swing the election result, I don't know. The media is misreporting every bit of that. They keep saying "the courts haven't found fraud" ... which is true ... but it's not because the courts have actually looked at evidence. Every claim like the Texas lawsuit has been dismissed for procedural or technical reasons like lack of standing, not because fraud wasn't found; they didn't look. There's still a lot of statistical evidence that there was: the big telltale is that Trump still won almost every bellwether swing county; Biden's margin came from an oversupply of votes in just a few blue counties like Philadelphia, and failed to correlate with downballot races at a historically unprecedented level. It turns out that the system decided that there's no method to challenge such a statistical outcome in court, or to force a state to follow its own electoral laws. PA directly violated its own constitution in changing the rules for mail-in balloting. This was the basis of Ted Cruz's lawsuit. The courts just shrugged and said not our problem, thus enshrining any fraud as fact, declaring the bug as a feature that we can't force states to follow their own laws.

Let me sum that up shorter: The courts decided there wasn't fraud not because there was no fraud, but because they didn't look at any evidence and thus simply declared the observed result as not-fraud.

If you believed there was sufficient fraud, then what happened (minus the actual injuries and deaths) was the right course of action. Or else we've just established that the ruling party can commit electoral fraud with no consequence, and then you've got a uniparty dictatorial state forever.

[Charriu]

Or else we've just established that the ruling party can commit electoral fraud with no consequence, and then you've got a uniparty dictatorial state forever.

Who was the ruling party at the time of election? Oh right it was the GOP. They controlled the presidency, supreme court, senat and some swing states. I think this is why the mob wanted to"hang Mike Pence", right?