American Politics Discussion Thread

[Charr Babies]

"O Canada, Our Home In (and) Native Land". This is how some Canadians sing the Canada national anthem. 

This long weekend is a very special statutory holiday in Canada, The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.  This is held to commemorate the legacy of residential schools, with many recent digs discovering mass graves of murdered children in residential schools.

They are showing the movie (free in theaters everywhere) based on true events, Bones of Crows, an epic story of resilience told through the eyes of Cree matriarch Aline Spears. As a young child, she and her siblings are taken from their home in Manitoba and forced into Canada's residential school system. I rate it 5 stars.

In the Diablo game series, you would drop an ear when you are PK’d. This came from an age old American tradition. It was a "uniquely American" innovation that the use of scalp (and ear) bounties in the wars against indigenous societies "became an indiscriminate killing process that deliberately targeted Indian non-combatants (including women, children, and infants), as well as warriors. 
Extra bonus was rewarded for scalps with ears attached.

Suppression, segregation, broken treaties and racism against the Native peoples of our nation is not an issue of the past. The legal and institutional systems of white supremacy have had devastating impacts on Native American tribes, and those systems continue to this day.

Our Nation(?) on stolen land. 
Why don't we Free Canada, Free US?

[Mjmd]

Unpopular Opinion. Democrats should have saved McCarthy. Is he a despicable, spineless, power hungry, morally flexible, coward and traitor that should never have been speaker to begin with? ABSOLUTELY. We deserve better. But therein lies the problem. Any future speaker knows they can now only rely on Republicans to be speaker, which means appeasing the farthest right crazies. Now mind you McCarthy was already doing this and I get why Democrats didn't want to save him, but the fact he is a power hungry morally flexible coward makes him a perfect candidate to save. Now sure in an ideal world some moderate Republican would try to do actual bi-partisan bid. But we don't live a ferry tale and that would mean Democrats would want concessions. There just aren't enough of those kind of Republicans left and I doubt the ones that do exist could get enough support from the rest of Republicans who are afraid of being primaried if they give Democrats anything even if it makes sense (see infrastructure bill vote aftermath).

[greenline]

Why would they compromise? They are clearly more interested in preparing a security state to bludgeon and subdue their opponents instead of bargaining with them.

[Dreylin]

I for one would love to live in a ferry tale ... was there a ferry in Thomas the Tank Engine?

I see the argument, and maybe that was the conclusion McCarthy was counting on them coming to, but he also needed to not actually talk to the Democrats about it because then he'd lose even more of his own side. And since it only take 1 to force a vote to bring him down, if he only stays in with help of Democrats then there are a line of MAGAs to keep calling votes on him.

But on the other hand, when you have a choice between saving a man whose balls are in the grip of the extremes of his party or the alternative of sitting back and watch your opponents repeatedly knee themselves in the crotch and prove they have no interest in governing, I think it's an easy ask.

The interesting question is how Republicans get out of it; I guarantee the next one in the chair is not going to accept the same restrictions that McCarthy did, so how do they get the votes? I doubt the moderates would support Jordan because he's guaranteed to lose them their seats, but who will the extremists trust to hand a long enough leash for them to feel safe from the same fate?

[Mjmd]

Yep they are definitely the party threatening security officials and campaigning on violence and imprisoning political opponents.

I highly recommend looking into history of Italian rise of Fascism. They didn't care what their side did because the "other" side was always worse (even though they weren't). It made statements of political violence just common place. They started accepting the unacceptable because of their fear. And that is when they lost.

[Mjmd]

@Dreylin.

I am very interested if any back room discussion was had and what was said if so. We may never know, but I really want to know.

[Cyneheard]

Unpopular Opinion. Democrats should have saved McCarthy. Is he a despicable, spineless, power hungry, morally flexible, coward and traitor that should never have been speaker to begin with? ABSOLUTELY. We deserve better. But therein lies the problem. Any future speaker knows they can now only rely on Republicans to be speaker, which means appeasing the farthest right crazies. Now mind you McCarthy was already doing this and I get why Democrats didn't want to save him, but the fact he is a power hungry morally flexible coward makes him a perfect candidate to save. Now sure in an ideal world some moderate Republican would try to do actual bi-partisan bid. But we don't live a ferry tale and that would mean Democrats would want concessions. There just aren't enough of those kind of Republicans left and I doubt the ones that do exist could get enough support from the rest of Republicans who are afraid of being primaried if they give Democrats anything even if it makes sense (see infrastructure bill vote aftermath).

He made zero offers to the Dems, he just assumed they would step in and save him.

So without any ability to lock down an actual deal - say, with some rules changes that would've both given the Dems some power-sharing and an actual bill or two - here's what happens next:

McCarthy goes to prove that he doesn't have a deal with Dems and does everything he can to work against the Dems. After all, he has to prevent this from happening again - and if he's seen as a Dem-in-Republican clothing (and that would happen), he gets tossed by a majority of his caucus. The same dynamic that prevents a sliver of the GOP from supporting Speaker Jeffries or a compromise candidate like Liz Cheney would've made saving McCarthy untenable without an actual deal.

So what's the upside on going this route? Yes, Abraham had better luck finding 10 righteous in Gomorrah than the Dems will have finding 10 reasonable House Republicans. But there's value in showing that clearly. And realistically, the policy side was always going to be a disaster from this House the moment the GOP won.

[Mjmd]

So yes this will help Democrats in 2024; yes. Will it show what a clusterfuck Republicans are; yes. I get that he wasn't really giving them anything. Lord knows I hate the man for bending the knee among other reasons. But it is bad for America right now.

[Mjmd]

Yep they are definitely the party threatening security officials and campaigning on violence and imprisoning political opponents.

I highly recommend looking into history of Italian rise of Fascism. They didn't care what their side did because the "other" side was always worse (even though they weren't). It made statements of political violence just common place. They started accepting the unacceptable because of their fear. And that is when they lost.

I realized that this could be construed as a tue quo que argument. IE I'm pointing out that Trump has on an at least weekly basis threatened political opponents or tried to use the DOJ for his own means, but that doesn't mean what is happening to him is justified. Therefore I wanted to do a quick logical check on the indictments against Trump. While there may be political opponents involved, do they lack a rational basis for the indictment?

Edit: to note I'm being brief with all of these to not write a book.

1) So the weakest one is definitely the hush money case. There isn't any doubt he did it, but it is more if its worth the charges filed and is it past the time limit for the case to be filed. But again, there isn't any doubt it happened.
2) Business fraud case (not one of the main 4 but in the news now) - There is plenty of evidence and its not like this is the first time charges have been brought against Trump for shady business dealings. Honestly a confusion many had back in 2016 was how in the world people thought he was a successful moral business man. Again, there is evidence it happened. As an accountant I've found some of his defenses to this one to be particularly funny.
3) Documents case. I think the main confusion for Republicans is "why not Biden (or other x person)". Again, there isn't any dispute he had them. The main difference is of course that there is evidence he KNEW he had them and didn't give them back. There were multiple attempts to get the documents back he didn't comply with. There is evidence of him knowingly moving them around. Now if there becomes evidence that Biden obstructed and concealed should he be charged with the same. ABSOLUTELY. But we don't have that atm.
4) Fulton County (IE Georgia interference) - the Georgia phone call should have ended Trump. Republican support should have ended well prior to this. But this was the watergate moment and Republicans failed to have courage. Again, there is strong evidence of him trying to overturn the election in Georgia. 
5) Fed election interference - Greenline himself has admitted he tried. Its not like we don't have public communication from Trump about him trying to do this. Let alone all the other evidence that the Jan 6 committee and Jack Smith have provided. So should he be charged; YES. 1000 times YES.

It baffles me that the rule of law party / constitution just looks at all this and says "that is our man".

Separately I know about 23/24 hours on Fox they go "BUT HUNTER". He is 100% guilty of some tax fraud and the gun charge (although if he had been the presidents son there is some good comparison that he wouldn't have been charged for the gun charge). I also believe he was involved in some legal grey zone shady business deals and no show jobs that he at least was playing off of his name and connection for. Currently there isn't any evidence Joe Biden was involved. However, even if there turns out to be, there is almost 0% chance he would be found guilty of it. Our lovely supreme court has made it almost impossible to find public officials guilty for this kind of thing. It doesn't mean it isn't wrong. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have a major ethics overhaul. It doesn't mean its not a reason to vote against him. I do however put it in the tier 3 of my prior voting tier in minor corruption. And JUST if you look an equality logical test between this and Trumps corruption in office that falls into this category (let alone what falls into the higher 2 tiers of major corruption and undermining / threat to democracy) it isn't even close.

[Tarkeel]

If this really was a democracy, surely people would get to vote on issues?

So people get stuck on the differences between a direct democracy vs a representational democracy. The US is a representational democracy. Don't get me wrong there is a lot wrong with our representative democracy, but I will argue tooth and nail it is better than an autocracy (and have done so).

Picking some nits here. While the US is a democracy in practice, it very explicitly is not formally so due to how the electoral college is structured. No, not the part where not every vote counts equally, but that the electors are not bound. The president is thusly formally appointed (by mostly elites) and not elected from the people.

(I'm not going into the issues with FPTP other than to say it doesn't exactly result in representative representation.)

I'd also recommend reading OSCE's election reports, it's probably the best third-party review of the process.