Political Discussion In The 20s

Topic

Let’s reboot this thing. Have at thee.

Replies

Why did we need to reboot?

The thread length was causing problems with the ‘go to new post’ function from the forum topics list.

Ah, there’s a tech limit – makes sense.

I did want to try to give some reassurance to Arjan, as a few other net acquaintances are being badly affected by all the political news too.  Not without reason, it is scary stuff.

On a lighter note:

Discuss politics in the 20s?

 

#LegalizeBooze #EndProhibition

I saw this on Facebook:

Can we reboot the Brexit vote, please?

They’ve thrown us under a bus. But so did austerity cuts long before.

Today I was sneered at for simply referring to a Dublin-sourced photo as having a French-vibe. “We’re still European. You’re not.”

Je suis ❤-briste.

Ben wrote:

Not without reason, it is scary stuff.

It seems intended to be scary primarily because that’s the way it’s reported. This guy who is so important we haven’t reported on him at all is now dead! World War 3 is imminent!

It’s head-spinning gaslighting on a mass scale.

2020 is forming up to be a really shit year, politically. Maybe we can just skip it?

Anonymous wrote:

Ben wrote:

Not without reason, it is scary stuff.

It seems intended to be scary primarily because that’s the way it’s reported. This guy who is so important we haven’t reported on him at all is now dead! World War 3 is imminent!

It’s head-spinning gaslighting on a mass scale.

Someone post The Day Today “War!” clip!

Ben wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ben wrote:

Not without reason, it is scary stuff.

It seems intended to be scary primarily because that’s the way it’s reported. This guy who is so important we haven’t reported on him at all is now dead! World War 3 is imminent!

It’s head-spinning gaslighting on a mass scale.

Someone post The Day Today “War!” clip!

People here are literally bursting with war!

After everything that’s gone down, anybody who still wants Trump as President is either a fucking moron or a piece of shit.

Yes, I know: it can be two things.

JRCarter wrote:

After everything that’s gone down, anybody who still wants Trump as President is either a fucking moron or a piece of shit.

Yes, I know: it can be two things.

Stupid piece of shit!

I doubt Iran is in the economical position to actually afford a full-out war. I think it’s obvious that since they were willing to sit down with Pres. Obama; They needed the sanctions lifted so in 10-15 years they could pursue whatever their endgame is.

But their general was inciting citizens of a  third-party nation to attack the US embassy. Under normal circumstances that would be an act of war on Iran’s part. They were sabre-rattling with Suleimani’s direct involvement. I think Trump was calling their bluff. Given recent actions of Iran, it would make sense that there is intelligence that they cannot afford war now, in 2020. If so, calling their bluff is a legitimate strategy.

Anonymous wrote:

I doubt Iran is in the economical position to actually afford a full-out war.

What is a full-out war in the current age? Nobody is imagining they’ll stage a conventional invasion of the USA. In fact despite their reputation on the old axis of evil they haven’t invaded anyone for over a century, the war with Iraq was instigated by Saddam Hussein.

The realistic fear is they use proxies to attack US assets and allies, that draws in more US troops to risk their lives in another protracted mess that kills a lot of people and brings no tangible benefits to anyone.

Maybe the US should bring back the draft so people who enjoy the sabre rattling can run the risk of actually being personally affected by either having to go themselves or their close family members.

 

 

But the attack was already doing that: they were using Iraqis as proxies, commanded by their own general, to attack US assets.

It’s sending a message: this attack was so provactive that America can’t ignore it anymore: we will hold you responsible, and if possible we won’t even lose people, we will try to use drones so you take the damage, and if it gets worse enough, you are risking a war, which nobody wants.

garjones wrote:

Maybe the US should bring back the draft so people who enjoy the sabre rattling can run the risk of actually being personally affected by either having to go themselves or their close family members.

You know it won’t happen that way. The wealthy will protect their young so they either aren’t drafted or if they are, they get stationed somewhere safe. It will be the poor and middle class who will die.

Besides, the irony of a draft dodger instituting a draft would give everyone whiplash from the head spins it would cause.

garjones wrote:

Maybe the US should bring back the draft so people who enjoy the sabre rattling can run the risk of actually being personally affected by either having to go themselves or their close family members.

I’m aware Kalman, I’m not absolving Iran or Suleimani  of blame, they have plenty.

The question is whether the response was proportionate and whether it will just end up escalating ever more dangerous tit for tat attacks.  Which it almost certainly will, with a Hezbollah attack on Israel their lives are less safe, US bases in the Middle East will face escalated threats.

What is to be gained here?  A martyr has been created which never ends well. We’ve tried the regime change game and it’s not really worked. The Iraqi government just ordered the US out of the country, 30 years of involvement, billions spent, thousands of Americans dead for that outcome?

Todd wrote:

You know it won’t happen that way

Of course it won’t. Bone spurs wasn’t it? In the ‘healthiest guy in the world’.

To be honest though I wasn’t just thinking about the wealthy and powerful but also the many ‘keyboard warriors’ happy to talk tough safe in the knowledge they won’t have to stand in a ditch in the desert with a gun.

 

garjones wrote:

I’m aware Kalman, I’m not absolving Iran or Suleimani  of blame, they have plenty.

The question is whether the response was proportionate and whether it will just end up escalating ever more dangerous tit for tat attacks.  Which it almost certainly will, with a Hezbollah attack on Israel their lives are less safe, US bases in the Middle East will face escalated threats.

What is to be gained here?  A martyr has been created which never ends well. We’ve tried the regime change game and it’s not really worked. The Iraqi government just ordered the US out of the country, 30 years of involvement, billions spent, thousands of Americans dead for that outcome?

The US instigating regime change in Iran literally lead to their modern-day theocracy.  But I’,m sure it’ll work out this time, guys.

Anonymous wrote:

But the attack was already doing that: they were using Iraqis as proxies, commanded by their own general, to attack US assets. It’s sending a message: this attack was so provactive that America can’t ignore it anymore: we will hold you responsible, and if possible we won’t even lose people, we will try to use drones so you take the damage, and if it gets worse enough, you are risking a war, which nobody wants.

Have you ever seen the third West Wing pilot episode, A Proportionate Response?

It ponders the assumptions behind your statement and shows quite well how unsatisfying proportionate responses are, and how necessary nevertheless.

To show two central moments from the episode (though watching it in full is recommended):

Leo is making the most relevant point at 01:30 in the second clip. Sending that message you want to send doesn’t work, Kalman. And there are many, many historic instances demonstrating it.

Plus, if the military of any other nation on our planet Earth had fired a missile at high-ranking US representatives in, say Canada or the UK you know that by now there would be dire pronouncements about how they were a rogue nation, a carrier group or two off their coasts, cruise missiles dropping on their cities and calls for regime change.

The difference between the actions of the US and Iran is a fiction that we as a society buy into, because it’s more comfortable than the truth that Western power is shored up by the threat of overwhelming military force.  We make the rules, and we also have the luxury of breaking the rules when we feel like it. And when we break the rules, our media will be full of people willing to justify it after the fact.  How many people who are calling Soleimani dangerous and a ‘major threat’ even mentioned his name before his assassination?

I mean, I’d say everyone should read Manufacturing Consent because it lays this whole scam out, but that’s redundant at this point.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Western power is shored up by the threat of overwhelming military force.

which I believe is becoming a fallacy. A hacker/code monkey might be able to cause more damage than a platoon or company and definitely be farther reaching.

Also, DO NOT get me started on “our media.”  First they are fragmented. for the “journalists” justifying one position, they will be others opposing said position. Second the ones doing real journalism get drowned out by talking heads spouting propaganda.

Christian wrote:

Have you ever seen the third West Wing pilot episode, A Proportionate Response?

I think a better cultural touchpoint is the novel/movie Failsafe. Its conclusion shows us a clear way to avoid world war 3.

Obviously a US drone strike on Trump is now required.

People are ridiculing this exchange, but I believe it is in the interests of all citizens for all government business to be in the open and open to scrutiny. Let’s demand a stop to closed-door meetings between our politicians and have everything done like this instead:

This Media Post will serve as a reminder that war powers reside in the Congress under the United States Constitution. And that you should read the War Powers Act. And that you’re not a dictator. https://t.co/VTroMegWv0

— House Foreign Affairs Committee (@HouseForeign) January 5, 2020

Two points I think we all understand;

1. The list of people dangerous to the citizens of the world is a long, long, long one. The Whitehouse doesn’t have to make up anything about him and his activities, he was at the centre of Iran’s activities backing militias, insurgencies and terrorists.

2. This had nothing to do with an immediate threat. He (and the people with him) were killed to help Trump with his political problems in the USA. This guy just had the misfortune to be the one who’s number came up.

Any report that doesn’t deal with those fact is playing along.

Did you know that biden, when senator, said that if Iran would attack an American embassy would be an act of war? He would have been willing to go to war over this. Yet, Trump just sent a warning, not a war, which Biden would have?

Iran didn’t attack a US embassy.

And Trump didn’t send a warning. He assassinated a government official. What he did after that was send a warning.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/qassem-soleimani-death-iran-baghdad-middle-east-iraq-saudi-arabia-a9272901.html?fbclid=IwAR1cv1FE_ipKSHQR_2GvfEsJIavmY-YeCL7AoaOCq6DCjz8n9yxvqOQsSSI

TLDR: Soleimani was in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi President to try to negotiate peace with the militias at the request of Saudi Arabia and Trump.

Comedian George Lopez Under Attack for Joke About Rumored Bounty on Trump

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time someone put a bounty out on Trump.

Iran’s proxies did attack an American embassy. They were not subtle about it- there was graffiti praising Suleimani by the proxies. In such a situation, is it unreasonable to see Iran sending Suleimani of all people as their representative as suspicious, or at least purposeful sabre-rattling?

Edit: That article didn’t imply that Trump asked that Iran send Suleimani, of all people, and he and the State Department might have been expecting the Iranians to realize that to do so, when their proxies used his name, would make America suspicious. They might have had a expectation that Iraq would realize that fact, and felt betrayed when the accepted Suleimani at face value.

Note that I’m not saying what Trump did was right, but I’m attributing this to von Goethe’s version of Hanlon’s razor

No you’re making excuses.

And you’re still wrong.

garjones wrote:

The Iraqi government just ordered the US out of the country, 30 years of involvement, billions spent, thousands of Americans dead for that outcome?

Billions were also made for some interested groups in that war, too. It is a good idea to get troops out of there as there are diminishing returns to be gained by staying AND troops can’t be protected in Iraq as the recent Kirkuk air base attack showed.

I don’t really understand the thinking behind proportional response, in this case. Proportional response depends on the perception of the parties, so it just means maintaining the situation as it is. They kill a few troops and contractors and we kill a few soldiers and militants. “It’s all part of the plan.”

However, that’s a terrible situation with no end in sight. If Iraq really wants the American military to leave, then great. It’s a terrific excuse to do what should’ve been done a decade ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Note that I’m not saying what Trump did was right, but I’m attributing this to von Goethe’s version of Hanlon’s razor

If you want people to think you’re smart and well-read then just call him Goethe like everyone else, even the Germans.

Iranian foreign minister says US ‘will pay’ for its ‘act of war’

sigh

McConnell says Senate trial will go forward without decision on witnesses

Fuck the Republicans. They’re all gutless pieces of shit.

McConnells been pretty transparent through this and I think everyone, including the Democrats, are expecting an acquittal.

My guess is that the strategy here is to cast Republicans as unconstitutional and inequitable going into the election year. That’s clear to me because Pelosi could have called for impeachment once we learned about the Daniels payment. It’s strategy.

The other side of the coin is that McConnell casts himself as a traditionalist who reads the Constitution as is and justifies all his maneuvering in congress because he’s just following the words of the founding fathers as written (I’m told he’s conveniently ignored some of the bipartisan  congressional guidelines written in part by Hilary Clinton though!).  We all know that’s a standard left /right divide too – between traditionalists and radical interpretstionalists – but the Constitution allows for amendment (obviously) and accounts for changing times. Lincoln, the great Republicsn famously observed this.

Both parties are ignoble but the Republican party really is a den of thieves, and that’s largely due to McConnell (and people like Roger Stone who has advised every Republican president since Nixon – he’s not just a ‘Trumpian’).

Iran has fired rockets at a US army base in Iraq.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/politics/rockets-us-airbase-iraq/index.html

Iran has threatened to unleash a third wave of attacks in Israel and Dubai if U.S. hits back

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/iran-threatens-to-unleash-hezbollah-in-israel-and-dubai

Wha…what did Dubai do though?

Also, i need to get off my chest, Trump is such a garbage being and he belongs to the prison, sorry, i can’t stand that prick.

For some reason i double post this news, weird.

MaxMaxmarvel123 wrote:

Wha…what did Dubai do though?

The UAE (along with Saudi Arabia) are considered to be the US’s closest allies among the Arab nations. There’s also the old Sunni v Shia conflict there which underlines so much of this.

It’s why Iraq is now buddying up more with Iran. During the Saddam days when they were at war with each other he was a Sunni leading a Shia majority. Since the US and allies like the UK deposed him they are now Shia ruled like Iran.

Anonymous wrote:

However, that’s a terrible situation with no end in sight. If Iraq really wants the American military to leave, then great. It’s a terrific excuse to do what should’ve been done a decade ago.

Personally that’s my opinion too but according to analysis I was listening to from the Guardian’s Middle East head yesterday it’s actually the direct opposite of what Pompeo wants, that a US base in Iraq is a strategic goal they want to maintain.

As in what I’m talking about above I really suspect they don’t think through the detail of the reactions and politics of the region. By creating a large Shia led neighbour to Iran they’ve ended up increasing their power base despite them always telling us they are in this ‘axis of evil’. By attacking Iranian officials they make it more likely Iraq wants to kick them out.

It’s why my comments to Kalman are around not party politics (I don’t care what Biden says about it) or justification of a single act but what actually will be the end result of all this? The basic argument that Saddam was a really nasty guy and to get rid of him is simple and correct on a basic level but we’ve seen long term it has ended up thousands of US casualties, millions of Iraqi ones, billions spent, the creation of Isis, a refugee crisis across the Middle East and Europe. Israel that they are vowed to protect is now in a more vulnerable situation and more likely to be attacked than before.

 

 

lorcan_nagle wrote:

“I didn’t like some Politco Article!: And I have put together a mock-up piece intended to make them look partisan or anti-Sanders”

?

“I didn’t like some Politco Article!: And I have put together a mock-up piece intended to make them look partisan or anti-Sanders”

 

Not quite.  There’s a cottage industry of articles talking about why and how Bernie Sanders is bad, somehow but are always about some ancillary thing, usually that he has obnoxious supporters.  Note how people are starting to accuse him of being anti-semitic after the smear worked so well on Corbyn.  But the same media outlets are also making anti-semitic attacks on him – look at the articles talking about his fundraising success use similar photos of him rubbing his hands in a manner framed to make him look like Le Happy Merchant.

Politico aren’t the only outlet doing this, but they are one of them.

That’s a pretty long explanation for a joke.  Sanders for President?

Anonymous wrote:

That’s a pretty long explanation for a joke.  Sanders for President?

He’s the least-worst choice!

You’re such a Bernie Bro, Lorcan. Stop being so rude.

Legitimate question for you Lorcan, intended to be asked with respect and politeness, and bearing in mind I am not a US citizen nor can I vote:

 

Why Sanders and not Warren?  Both similar political outlooks, Warren more of a policy wonk.

I am not Lorcan but I can vote unlike Lorcan.  I am of the belief that one of the reasons against Warren is she is a woman. IMO, too much of the voting public is sexist and I would not like to be burned again by that group this time around. I realize my opinion is not a positive one and totally ignores the issues but the last 3 years have been a mess and I would like to have a different voice in the white house in January of 2021. I would love to be proven wrong but not at the risk of 4 more years of Trump. We can talk about it shouldn’t matter , yada yada yada. but right now on ESPN they are talking about how all the new NFL coaches are white and why aren’t the Black candidates getting a fair shake so don’t tell me things have changed. White men still run this country. We are not as progressive as we would like. so, in November i will vote against Trump but I hope it isn’t a candidate that alienates any part of the country, whether they have legitimate views or not.

I can understand that reasoning, but if everybody thought like that, you’d have never had a black president.

I thought it was intersting what Mehdi Hasan said about this topic on the Daily Show:

 

The USA just isn’t in bad shape enough that Trump would lose. Even here in California, people I’d expect to be against Trump like Mexican immigrants and African Americans like him better than the Democratic Party, and many have tuned out the hysteria in the news over everything he does. Mainly because all the dire predictions for his presidency never came to fruition.

Even most Obama voters are doing better under Trump.

Anonymous wrote:

Legitimate question for you Lorcan, intended to be asked with respect and politeness, and bearing in mind I am not a US citizen nor can I vote:

 

Why Sanders and not Warren?  Both similar political outlooks, Warren more of a policy wonk.

A few reasons.  Primarily driven by my belief that the Republicans – not just Trump represent a literal existential threat to the planet at this point.  Their willingness to ignore the climate crisis and deliberately propagandise against it is little more than a death cult.

With that in mind.

1. Bernie is the most popular politician in America.  Of course his numbers will drop once the smear campaign goes into high gear, but he’s starting from the best position.
2. As you note, they have similar outlooks, but Sanders is closer to mine than Warren.  Why would I support Diet Sanders when I can support Sanders instead?
3. Warren’s policies kowtow too much to the American status quo, which is awful for the working class and increasingly bad for the middle class.  Bernie at least has some class consciousness which will inform his changes.
4. As Rocket notes, the US is far more misogynistic and racist than it likes to admit.  Like or not, Warren’s gender and the whole Native American thing will be major points against her.

All that said, I think Warren has the best chance of winning in the Democrat Primary and then going on to beat Trump.  Biden is DOA, and everyone else is a fucking joke. The problem is that the Democrat apparatus and to a lesser degree the relatively left-wing parts of the media are so out of touch with what Americans want and need.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Huh .</p>
I don’t think I agree with you at all.

Warren isn’t my ideal candidate but I’ll take her. I also.think shed be much better for the country and a way better president then Sanders.  Her plan makes sense economically and Sanders does not.

Sanders would be hilarious though, so I’ll take him too.

Is Sanders/Warren out of the question?

Andrew wrote:

Is Sanders/Warren out of the question?

I wouldn’t be averse to them as a joint ticket.

Anonymous wrote:

The USA just isn’t in bad shape enough that Trump would lose. Even here in California, people I’d expect to be against Trump like Mexican immigrants and African Americans like him better than the Democratic Party, and many have tuned out the hysteria in the news over everything he does. Mainly because all the dire predictions for his presidency never came to fruition.

Even most Obama voters are doing better under Trump.

Anonymous wrote:

The USA just isn’t in bad shape enough that Trump would lose. Even here in California, people I’d expect to be against Trump like Mexican immigrants and African Americans like him better than the Democratic Party, and many have tuned out the hysteria in the news over everything he does. Mainly because all the dire predictions for his presidency never came to fruition. Even most Obama voters are doing better under Trump.

That’s some great census data on most Obama voters.

Trump is a joke and your country would do better to vote him out. You won’t though. Because youre dumb.

Prove me wrong, Johnny!

I know that sounds mean and vitriolic but I think i’ve made my position known about this before.

I think Americans are burdened by criticism from the outside world because of how public their politics are and how important a country they are on the world stage.  I will vehemently criticise Trump and how dumb he makes America look and nor will I shy away in response to any attempt to claim I am uninformed or not allowed to comment because I am not American.  I am, frankly, sick to death of the defeatist attitude towards Trump because of:

1. Two term presidencies are the norm;

2. Unemployment and the economy

3. He’s not that bad.

All three of those points are really silly reasons to re-elect Trump but point 2 is the only one that has any substance. On that:

https://fortune.com/longform/trump-policies-bad-for-business-trade-immigration-taxes-regulations-us-economy/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2019/11/26/trumps-economy-is-on-the-cusp-of-negative-growth/#5225e68f3be9

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/long-term-disaster-trump-foreign-policy

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-didnt-transform-the-economy-its-mostly-the-same-as-it-was-under-obama-2019-11-12

https://www.forbes.com/sites/francesbridges/2019/04/30/how-trump-embodies-the-definition-of-a-bad-leader/

https://www.businessinsider.com/ap-norc-poll-most-disapprove-of-trump-on-race-relations-2019-9/

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/9-charts-comparing-trump-economy-to-obama-bush-administrations-2019-9?r=US&IR=T

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45827430

washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/20/trump-v-obama-economy-charts/

Notwithstanding that the last two articles are probably the most relevant to the public perception – it’s pretty clear that there’s no growth, there’s just stability NOW.  That indicates to me that if Americans are complacent and keep Trump in, despite, many many other articles I could link to, then  those Americans are fucking short sighted cowards that don’t understand shit. Yes, that’s how I really feel.

If he stays in, which I expect he will, you can expect lots of posts from me talking about how fucking dumb a decision that is, just like you would from any reasonably intelligent American that hates him.

He’s not that bad, he’s terrible. He’s given people permission to hate; I’m all right Jack, pull the ladder up, short-term thinking. At this stage, a lot won’t even be able to tell you why they vote for Trump. They’ve been brain-washed by the likes of Fox “news” and misleading headlines and images. It’s a culty tent revival atmosphere. Politics is like a woman: gets a bit hysterical and over-wrought and, consequently, dumb.

Anonymous wrote:

Notwithstanding that the last two articles are probably the most relevant to the public perception – it’s pretty clear that there’s no growth, there’s just stability NOW.  That indicates to me that if Americans are complacent and keep Trump in, despite, many many other articles I could link to, then  those Americans are fucking short sighted cowards that don’t understand shit. Yes, that’s how I really feel.

But it doesn’t really matter how you feel or the news stories you look up to support your opinion. It’s not like you ever thought Trump would be a good president and then suddenly discovered all this information that he’s going to be a disaster. You will find what you are looking for.

The United States is one of the largest countries geographically and in population whose democratic government has lasted this long. We’re always going to be a very messy nation. Stability is about the best we manage for long periods, but we’ve managed to get past far worse threats than Trump and will continue to do so. There were dire predictions about every president since I’ve been alive and some of them came true, but most of them get dealt with and turn out to not be as nearly as bad as predicted.

Essentially, I’m living here in the country with connections to both liberal and conservative parts of it, and the lives of people on a day to day basis do not reflect the picture painted by media reports that mostly amount to opinion whose predictions never appear in reality. We have plenty of problems, but most of them are not something a president caused or can repair. We’re not in a situation similar to when Obama got elected or when Clinton was elected (both very moderate, and even very conservative in the case of Clinton, Democrats) so it is very unlikely that a Democrat will make a good case to take back electoral votes from Trump.

I’ll still vote Democrat as will California – I’d prefer Sanders – but I doubt there will be much difference between this election and the last one.

Anonymous wrote:

But it doesn’t really matter how you feel or the news stories you look up to support your opinion. It’s not like you ever thought Trump would be a good president and then suddenly discovered all this information that he’s going to be a disaster. You will find what you are looking for.

o wow! thats amazing! they should call that something cool like … confwamayshun bwyas! good thing im just reading little ol things that just tell me what to say like foreignpolicy and forbes and bizness inswida *giggle giggle*

but wot do i no im just a dum global bizness lawya. im jus a widdle idiot and pwobably don deserve the courtesy of beweeving I hav an infwormed apinyon *shakes rattle*

 

 

Seriously though, you do you and ill still call American fucking dumb for voting the idiot in.  Fuck sake, what if there actually is a recession – do you want Trump to be the most important man in the chair?  I’d take some quiet solace being in one of the few countries that survived 2008 relatively unscathed but i have less faith this potential go around – particularly with how dumb American is going to be in 2020.

I recognise you’re saying that most Americans are complacent and don’t feel any impact on their lives and so will let Trump in again.  I’m saying that too. And I’m saying its fucking dumb and cowardly and shameworthy

No one can afford to get complacent where democracy and human rights are concerned. It’s dangerous.

The cruelty and cages and constant gaslighting is the point. It’s exhausting.

Nevertheless she persisted.

I really want to see a Sanders presidency. I don’t think his policies are unattainable, if we can pay for endless war in two countries and possibly a third then we can pay to take care of our own people (and end those stupid fucking immoral wars).

Note how in all the anxiety over war with Iran over the last week, no outlet’s asked how we’d pay for it. Because they know we can.

Its been a while since i checked but isn’t it something like 50% annual federal budget to Defence?

I would love to see a radical budget and  corporate tax reform purely because America would likely lead the way for us (Also a big reason why I’m particularly impassioned because our governmentnhistorically takes it’s cues from you guys, for good and bad).

I just don’t think Sanders is the guy. I’m not confident he’s got the minutae worked out and I think he lacks bipartisanship. If he’s not getting rid of the filibuster then all of his grand plans are dead in the water and if he is they lack longtermanship.

As I said upthread I’d be content with a Sanders presidency and would watch with interest,  but I don’t think history would remember him as the great reformer.

Anonymous wrote:

Its been a while since i checked but isn’t it something like 50% annual federal budget to Defence?

I would love to see a radical budget and  corporate tax reform purely because America would likely lead the way for us (Also a big reason why I’m particularly impassioned because our governmentnhistorically takes it’s cues from you guys, for good and bad).

I just don’t think Sanders is the guy. I’m not confident he’s got the minutae worked out and I think he lacks bipartisanship. If he’s not getting rid of the filibuster then all of his grand plans are dead in the water and if he is they lack longtermanship.

As I said upthread I’d be content with a Sanders presidency and would watch with interest,  but I don’t think history would remember him as the great reformer.

Yeah, we’d need to dramatically lower how much we spend on defense, if we can’t do that then the planet’s fucked. I think there’s the will for it among the electorate, and I think Sanders can draw in nonvoters just like AOC was able to on a smaller scale (the logic that nonvoters are lost causes seems to me to exist because left-leaning nonvoters are disaffected due to capitalism). Sanders just seems to me like the guy who’ll fight for this stuff, the other candidates including Warren let themselves react too much to the right instead of standing firm.

Republicans didn’t touch the New Deal for decades because it was so ingrained and doing so seemed impossible. But Reagan used aggressive messaging to change the national conversation and he got it done. I think Sanders is the candidate to do the same but for moral causes this time. He doesn’t mince words, he doesn’t walk back his ideas as Warren’s done recently, he’s the same guy he’s always been.

Unless there’s another blue wave and the next democratic president has a super majority in the senate nothing is going to get passed no matter who is it.

Republicans didn’t touch the New Deal for decades because it was so ingrained and doing so seemed impossible. But Reagan used aggressive messaging to change the national conversation and he got it done. I think Sanders is the candidate to do the same but for moral causes this time. He doesn’t mince words, he doesn’t walk back his ideas as Warren’s done recently, he’s the same guy he’s always been.

Yeah, This is a big part of where I’m coming from.  Jonathan is right that things aren’t bad enough for a mass exodus of voters from Trump to the Dems, which means that people who don’t usually vote and new voters need to be mobilised, especially in the swing states.  The big problem is that the Dems offer them almost nothing exciting. Their social programs are vital and important, but protecting reproductive rights doesn’t do a lot of workers in the rust belt.  The left is meant to be in solidarity with the working class, and the Democrats have largely abandoned them.

Now, to her credit Clinton won the working class overall, but not where it counted.

(also, I mentioned a mass exodus of voters, and I don’t think it works like that.  Sure, there are some people who switch who they vote for, but I think it’s more a case of people who only vote on occasion, dropping in and out when motivated.  I also think that a larger percentage of the Republican base remains motivated, based on the difference between opinion polls on social issues and voting patterns)

My impression from the results of the last election was that it doesn’t actually require a huge number of voters to change their votes this time around, it just requires a (relative) handful in the right places.

So you would think the Democrats would focus their energies there – it’s not like they have to convince their existing voter base that voting for Trump is a bad idea.

Dave wrote:

My impression from the results of the last election was that it doesn’t actually require a huge number of voters to change their votes this time around, it just requires a (relative) handful in the right places.

So you would think the Democrats would focus their energies there – it’s not like they have to convince their existing voter base that voting for Trump is a bad idea.

Yeah, the election was decided by like 30,000 people spread out across a few states

I think it was closer to 70,000 but really either way that’s a very small amount to try and swing back.

The real question is how the people in those rust belt states feel because economies are local. We saw in the Brexit debate how macroeconomics fails dismally as an electoral argument. The level of the Dow Jones won’t matter if two factories closed down. There are many many variables at play.

I’m always reminded of those restrospective shows like ‘I Love the 1980s’ when they do the bit about ‘us all remembering’ yuppies and filofaxes and ostentatious wealth in the later part of the decade. Not round my way we didn’t, never happened.

 

 

 

lorcan_nagle wrote:

The big problem is that the Dems offer them almost nothing exciting. Their social programs are vital and important, but protecting reproductive rights doesn’t do a lot of workers in the rust belt.  The left is meant to be in solidarity with the working class, and the Democrats have largely abandoned them.

Similar to the UK, the Conservative party here is attracting working class away from the Liberal party because the Liberals have moved toward serving the Middle and Urban upscale voters instead of appealing to working class and rural poor votes.
I think the Victorian Tory party started with the innovation of appealing to both the very Upper classes AND the very Lower classes. This seems to be a successful strategy. The 2020 election here will test that direction.

Will_C wrote:

Republicans didn’t touch the New Deal for decades because it was so ingrained and doing so seemed impossible. But Reagan used aggressive messaging to change the national conversation and he got it done. I think Sanders is the candidate to do the same but for moral causes this time. He doesn’t mince words, he doesn’t walk back his ideas as Warren’s done recently, he’s the same guy he’s always been.

What’s his plan for McConnell? Has he said anything?  Reagan’s push back against The New Deal and was supported by a Republican senate. Which was the first time there had been a Republican senate since, I think, either Truman or Eisenhower.  While I understand it was partly successful with the American public because he was able to characterise new economic policies as progressive, and that FDR hadn’t accounted for a rejection of the gold standard, there was plenty of Democratic opposition to that interpretation but just not enough to stop.

In my mind it’s just politics as usual if you make big promises but haven’t really thought about how to get it done.

I know Sanders is popular but clearly I’m not convinced.  As has been noted previously though, my opinion does not matter, but particularly so because I’m not voting.

(I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this before but I’m deep in this shit due to a birthday present and am right up to the Reagan years – it’s a really big fucking book)

A divided congress – or possibly an entirely republican one with a conservative supreme court – will make it difficult for any Democratic president to take drastic action unless they simply follow Trump’s playbook and move ahead while daring congress or the courts to stop them. Reagan is another example of when there was a great deal of unhappiness driving a President and Party out of power in his first term.

However, the way the Republicans have stacked the Federal Courts, it will be hard for the democrats to get anything significant done even if they regain power.

If polls have any legitimacy, Sanders now leads in California which makes his winning the nomination more likely than ever before.

One big unknown factor in US elections, it seems, is the people who want to vote but can’t. That’s part of why I think it’s unfair to tar everyone or even a majority with the same brush (especially when in 2016 far more people voted against Trump than for him) when Trump won, and if he wins again.

If Sanders is the nominee, and wins – that’s great. At this point any of the candidates would be an improvement to Trump. The silver lining should Sanders lose is that it would muffle the relitigation of the 2016 Primaries that continues 4 years later – the “Bernie would have won!” crowd will need to accept that they might have been wrong.

“There are a lot of rabbits running around claiming to be the very best bunny, but the president hasn’t yet decided which set of fuzzy tails he’ll use.”

What?

I’d insist on anonymity too if I came out with that sort of looney tune.

What is going on in the White House: Duck season / Wabbit season?

Christian wrote:

I can understand that reasoning, but if everybody thought like that, you’d have never had a black president.

I actually voted for Obama and I usually vote for a president rather than against one but I am so tired of listening to Trump I just want him to go away. I had a discussion with a co worker recently and he brought up a good point. You should respect the office of President regardless of who is in the office. So I really really really want him out of office.  I voted for Hillary. I believe in the phrase Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, Shame on me.  That is why I am hesitant to vote for Warren. But I believe a lot can change in the next 6 months so my mind might change as well.

Rocket wrote:

I voted for Hillary. I believe in the phrase Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, Shame on me. That is why I am hesitant to vote for Warren.

By that logic, you should never vote for anyone who might not win.

I thought Hillary’s surname was Clinton?

Hillary Clinton was the woman who ran against Trump in 2016. Elizabeth Warren is the woman who is running in 2020.  My point was a woman got defeated by Trump in 2016 and I believed it was because there were too many sexist voters and I don’t want the situation to occur again.

I only vote for candidates who win.

Anonymous wrote:

The USA just isn’t in bad shape enough that Trump would lose. Even here in California, people I’d expect to be against Trump like Mexican immigrants and African Americans like him better than the Democratic Party, and many have tuned out the hysteria in the news over everything he does. Mainly because all the dire predictions for his presidency never came to fruition.

Even most Obama voters are doing better under Trump.

I agree to some extent, I have defended Trump in some areas or at least I am not always as critical as some others are. However the Iran thing is a crisis he created all by himself by stepping out of the deal (and he probably did that to spite Obama). If I could, I’d impeach him even if that was the only thing he did wrong.

But I kinda agree, he has a good chance in November. And I don’t think has presidency so far is much worse than say a Jeb Bush presidency or a Ted Cruz presidency might have been.

garjones wrote:

The real question is how the people in those rust belt states feel because economies are local. We saw in the Brexit debate how macroeconomics fails dismally as an electoral argument. The level of the Dow Jones won’t matter if two factories closed down.

Factories can close down. it still won’t matter. People don’t base votes on reality. Listen to the guy being interviewed here:

This Trump supporter can't point to a single good thing Trump has done.

Trump's support is more shallow than many people realize.

Bernie will wipe the floor with Trump in a general election.pic.twitter.com/zqg6QiZWRR

— Eric Blanc (@_ericblanc) January 10, 2020

The guy tweeting is taking the wrong lesson from this. “Trump’s support is shallow”. No. That’s not what this interview shows. Trump’s support is blind and ignorant, and that’s the deepest, strongest support anyone can get. You can’t change these people’s minds.

Anonymous wrote:

And I don’t think has presidency so far is much worse than say a Jeb Bush presidency or a Ted Cruz presidency might have been.

I can’t imagine Jeb or Cruz giving the finger to our strongest allies in Canada, Germany, and the UK while simultaneously sucking up to bastards like Kim Jung Un, Erdogan, and Putin. I also can’t imagine that Jeb or Cruz would wholeheartedly abandon efforts to confront climate change domestically and internationally.

The guy tweeting is taking the wrong lesson from this. “Trump’s support is shallow”. No. That’s not what this interview shows. Trump’s support is blind and ignorant, and that’s the deepest, strongest support anyone can get. You can’t change these people’s minds.

Yeah, these people literally believe Trump is “draining the swamp” with no proof.  They take his statements at face value. And this is why the whole Democrat schtick of trying to reach out to moderate Republican voters is a fool’s errand – there are no moderate Republican voters left. They’re all more than willing to vote for someone like Trump over a Democrat. Reaching out to non-voters and disaffected supporters is the best way to gain votes.

njerry wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

And I don’t think has presidency so far is much worse than say a Jeb Bush presidency or a Ted Cruz presidency might have been.

I can’t imagine Jeb or Cruz giving the finger to our strongest allies in Canada, Germany, and the UK while simultaneously sucking up to bastards like Kim Jung Un, Erdogan, and Putin. I also can’t imagine that Jeb or Cruz would wholeheartedly abandon efforts to confront climate change domestically and internationally.

I don’t know how Trump has given the finger to Germany or Canada but I think Cruz’s opinion on the Paris accords and the Iran deal was pretty much the same as Trump’s. In most respects, other than the cosmetic, Trump has been in line with the Republican agenda. Even a bit less belligerent than most recent presidents.

 

Trump’s position regarding Russia and North Korea is really an improvement over someone like Bush or Hillary Clinton. Personally I believe we shouldn’t push our attitudes and beliefs on other countries that don’t share them, and just find a way to coexist instead.

North Korea is probably the biggest human rights abuser on the planet.

That’s not hyperbole, nor is it me just finding an article that supports my thoughts:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/coidprk/pages/commissioninquiryonhrindprk.aspx

Trumps stance on North Korea is shocking and it actually has nothing to do with America, it’s the UN, but America absolutely should be taking steps to respond to the atrocities, as should Russia and China.

II wouldn’t have said the US were just as bad as those countries but now they are. It’s abusive, despicable and selfish.

America’s new response to Russia is because Putin hates the Magnitsky act. It’s Russia’s greed and has nothing to do with ‘getting along with each other. It’s about accessing frozen assets which were frozen because they commuted international crimes.

Ton germany Trump hates Merkel but he cant do shit apart from be annoying at summits and withhold pledges and votes because he thinks it makes him look powerful.

‘Live and let live is a disastrously naive way to look at foreign policy.

I don’t like America World Police either but Foreign policy is a thousands more nuanced than that.

Jeb or Cruz would have been just as bad is really sidestepping the issues. They wouldn’t have been, although Cruz would have been comparably critical in other ways.

Trump is not a good president and he is damaging America’s role on the world stage. He is not improving the lives of people living in other countries through selective non interaction. That’s an intellectually undernourished position to make.

Anonymous wrote:

North Korea is probably the biggest human rights abuser on the planet.

That’s not hyperbole, nor is it me just finding an article that supports my thoughts:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/coidprk/pages/commissioninquiryonhrindprk.aspx

Trumps stance on North Korea is shocking and it actually has nothing to do with America, it’s the UN, but America absolutely should be taking steps to respond to the atrocities, as should Russia and China.

II wouldn’t have said the US were just as bad as those countries but now they are. It’s abusive, despicable and selfish.

America’s new response to Russia is because Putin hates the Magnitsky act. It’s Russia’s greed and has nothing to do with ‘getting along with each other. It’s about accessing frozen assets which were frozen because they commuted international crimes.

Ton germany Trump hates Merkel but he cant do shit apart from be annoying at summits and withhold pledges and votes because he thinks it makes him look powerful.

‘Live and let live is a disastrously naive way to look at foreign policy.

I don’t like America World Police either but Foreign policy is a thousands more nuanced than that.

So the difference is completely cosmetic. Obama didn’t do jack shit about North Korea, except maybe for saying a bunch of empty platitudes.

 

A lot of people have a problem with Trump’s style. That is understandable, he is a blow hard, but I don’t think he is magnitudes worse than other US presidents. For fucks sake, we’re up to two impeachment procedures with Trump now, how many were there for Dubya?

 

Honestly, saying Trump is not a good president is a it like saying a stomach ulcer is not a good disease. They have all been pretty crap lately. Since, I don’t know, Roosevelt?

Well that’s a matter of opinion, not fact.

I don’t think the difference between Obama and Trump is cosmetic at all, nor do I believe there’s homogeneity between Bush, Clinton, Bush. Or Reagan and Nixon etc. Im not going to argue about it though because I’m confident in the facts because I’ve studied it previously and I’m not going to bother spending 45 minutes compiling resources which are just going to be ignored in favour of a knee-jerk reaction.

The American President is an important role on the world stage. You might hate interventionalism but don’t conflate that with periods of productive foreign policy. Yes they wars have been started. Yes there are countries, such as Iran and El Salvador which have been fundamentally destabilized by American intervention. If that adds up to ‘All American presidents are suxorz” then I reiterate the last line of my previous posts.

I will say that I think I hate the idea of American Exceptionalism more than anyone here and absolutely hate the pretense of specialness. But I’m not too keen on reducing foreign policy into binary responses either.

DavidM wrote:

Trump’s support is blind and ignorant, and that’s the deepest, strongest support anyone can get. You can’t change these people’s minds.

I agree but those people aren’t important in many ways. Every party has a core of support that will not shift whatever happens, whatever Trump says or does his approval rating stays at a certain level but that level is below 50% (usually 35-40%).

The formerly Democrat voters that shifted Obama to Trump, largely in former industrial areas where well paying jobs have been replaced with low paying ones, saw Clinton and the ‘continuity’ vote and took a gamble with something else. With someone who targeted their disquiet with promises of getting those quality jobs back while she pretty much ignored them. The left in the US (and the UK for that matter) has focused too much on metropolitan middle class voters, people like a lot of us to be honest.

I don’t think their loyalty is as blind as the kid in the MAGA hat attending his rallies (and seemingly wearing his entire wardrobe at the same time). If they see that malaise continue they’ll look for another solution, if Trump actually is improving their prospects then fair play to him, he’s done a part of his job well.

 

The swing states are basically the same as 2016 aren’t they?

I check in with pod save America from time to time and they’re always rabitting on about planning for the rust belt and the big four.

Do we have any posters from there? Curious to see if they see promises made and kept.

The big broken promise to those areas is combatting the opioid crisis. Trump promised to do so. He made gestures towards it at the beginning of his presidency but never really followed through and then forgot about it (as did most of the country).

Rocket wrote:

Hillary Clinton was the woman who ran against Trump in 2016. Elizabeth Warren is the woman who is running in 2020.  My point was a woman got defeated by Trump in 2016 and I believed it was because there were too many sexist voters and I don’t want the situation to occur again.

The answer is surely to try and root out sexism, not to give up on voting for women. That just gives the sexists what they want.

It’s also a bit impossible to quantify how much of a factor her gender was. Hillary Clinton, unlike her husband, is not a character it’s easy to warm to, she campaigned poorly by taking for granted the rust belt states she lost, she was the continuity candidate when a lot of people were calling for change.

It’s a bit like after Obama was elected there were people rushing to declare America post-racial, that fell apart rather quickly. I don’t believe the USA is any more sexist than the UK which has elected a woman twice, racial history between the two is very different but on gender it isn’t really.  It’s almost definitely less sexist than Pakistan who elected a woman.

My concern with Warren is that I think she’s also a little difficult to warm to. I think Oprah Winfrey would storm to a win if she stood.

 

 

Is Warren hard to warm to? Her initial rise in the polls was based on her skill at retail politics, ie meeting people and getting them to like her.

garjones wrote:

I think Oprah Winfrey would storm to a win if she stood.

I keep hoping for the announcement that Michelle Obama has thrown her (very stylish) hat into the ring.

garjones wrote:

I think Oprah Winfrey would storm to a win if she stood.

I don’t think so when there are pictures like these floating around:

At the end of the day Oprah is a business won an.

Her brand is guaranteed to suffer if she runs9n Weinstein, there’s probably photos of lots of Hollywood like that. He was one of the biggest producers in the world.

Unrelated – curious that we’ve had two fictionalized versions of the fall of Roger Ailes and nothing of the arguably bigger Weinstein…

 

garjones wrote:

It’s also a bit impossible to quantify how much of a factor her gender was. Hillary Clinton, unlike her husband, is not a character it’s easy to warm to, she campaigned poorly by taking for granted the rust belt states she lost, she was the continuity candidate when a lot of people were calling for change.

I wonder how much luck is involved.

Just look at the past week and a half. Trump orders the assassination of Iran’s general Suliemani and his puppet Iraqi military leader Mohandes and everyone loses their shit. However, no one can really defend either of the generals assassinated, but they can reasonably say this is an escalation of violence.

However, then Iran has a funeral that ends up killing a couple dozen of their own citizens. They launch a missile strike against Iraqi airbases that basically are laughed at and at the same time accidentally shoot down a civilian jet filled with 80 of their own citizens and many other non-American, basically neutral foreign citizens. Dozens more Iranians have died from the Iran’s regime’s response to Trump’s successful assassination order of the general in charge of their proxy war against the West, and this has sparked more protests against that regime in Iran. If anyone recalls, the last big story about Iran’s regime was how they suppressed and killed over a thousand of their own people who were protesting the regime.

So while everyone was ready to jump all over Trump’s insane foreign policy, Iran’s theocratic leaders drew all the attention away by doing everything they could to remind people just how horrible they actually are even in comparison to the Trump administration. They even gave the guy a chance to look like a magnanimous supporter of human rights.

Here, domestically, it’s the same with this idiotic impeachment process. The democrats manage to put together a very difficult case out of some actually questionable constitutional reasoning to “get impeachment done” and then Pelosi – out of nowhere – pulls an obvious procedural feint in an attempt to influence or at least expose the bias in the senate toward Trump’s actions, and it completely backfires. I mean, democratic supporters can deceive themselves, but holding up the articles completely wrecks any argument for the impeachment since it is basically doing everything they’ve accused Trump of doing by playing “fast and loose” with the constitution for political advantages.

Now, either Trump is a political genius or he’s just lucky on an unbelievable level, and I don’t think he’s a genius.

Todd wrote:

I don’t think so when there are pictures like these floating around:

I honestly don’t think that would matter a tiny jot Todd. Politics is full of people in photo ops with dodgy characters. Hollywood is packed with chummy photos with Weinstein (plus Cosby and Spacey) and it has affected nobody’s popularity. Just deny knowledge of his assaults and condemn them and the vast majority of people move on (and I suspect the ones who don’t wouldn’t be voting for the other guy with 19 rape accusations) .