And partisan gerrymandering in several states makes the House tilt slightly more Republican than it should. (In 2012 Democrats won the most votes but not the most seats).
As if partisan gerrymandering is a Republican, rather than bipartisan, practice. Our states map was gerrymandered by the D's a couple of years ago.
You are also combining the results of multiple races to come to the conclusion that Democrats unfairly lost out on seats. The far more likely explanation is that Democrats won states with higher populations but didn't win more elections overall. Nobody loses the popular vote but wins the seat here.
This is another case of false equivalency. Both sides do it. But both sides do not do it to the same degree.
"Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for the House of Representatives, yet Republicans won control of the House by a 234 to 201 margin. This is only the second such reversal since World War II."
...
"In North Carolina, where the two-party House vote was 51 percent Democratic, 49 percent Republican, the average simulated delegation was seven Democrats and six Republicans. The actual outcome? Four Democrats, nine Republicans"
...
"Surprisingly absent from the guilty list is California, where 62 percent of the two-party vote went to Democrats and the average mock delegation of 38 Democrats and 15 Republicans exactly matched the newly elected delegation. Notably, California voters took redistricting out of legislators’ hands by creating the California Citizens Redistricting Commission."
The whole article is worth your time.
Again, the Electoral College is allowed to be anti-democratic for reasons according to conservatives. So is the Senate. And now when the House is also not democratic... that's just fine. It's almost like certain folks don't want the majority to have a voice in governing for some reason.
Opinion section, his own "unique analysis", never heard of the guy so he has no reputation with me, I take it with a grain of salt. Maybe his set of unexamined conjectures is accurate, maybe it's not, but from where i'm standing it's opinion, not fact.
I have to say, this response really seems apropos of the entire discussion we're having/ You argued that "both sides" engage in partisan gerrymandering (they do). Dino explained how it's fundamentally unequal (which is speaks wonderfully to the past 2 or 200 pages of this thread, I've lost count) and your response was... "I dont like your source's math". Which is verifiable and would either prove (or more likely, disprove) your claim.
Which is, sadly, why Liberals are doomed to flail away at real power but never quite get there. Do you really think you're going to appeal to people on the right with logic? How about this? Do you really think that everybody that is voting for you is doing it because they think you're so logical, or is it maybe because you're offering them free shit? You disparage the education levels of the right, while totally ignoring the bad, or worse education levels of a great many of your followers. The uneducated masses in the inner-cities are voting for you because they think your brains are bigger? I don't think so. I think that the uneducated masses on the right are correctly assuming that they're going to be the ones paying for the uneducated masses on the left's free shit.
Well...
First - I'm not sure where I fit in all of that. I'm just pointing out how the macro argument just repeated itself in micro here in the thread, which I find to be a bit amusing.
Second - I dont think your framing is really accurate or appropriate here. I dont see it as "free shit". I expect to pay for it with increased taxes. Also, the services I would like to see the government provide doesnt need to be "the left's" or "the right's". If you told me 75% of people who are currently benefiting from the ACA were conservative, I'd be happy that they were getting health insurance when they previously had none.
I support concepts like free college tuition, government paid healthcare and social safety nets, and I have absolutely zero issue with those resources benefiting conservatives of liberals (or vice versa).
As for who is paying for it? I want to emphatically state that I dont particularly care who is paying for it, but you should know that cities are the drivers for the majority of economic output in the country. If the cities are more often liberal, then it seems apparent that they will be the ones paying.
I point that out only to indicate that I dont think that there is some burden being placed upon conservatives to uplift liberals. I dont personally care who the burden is placed upon, so long as the uplifting is done fairly and equivalently for all those who need it.
Well I'm talking more about feelings and perceptions than reality. When I say the uneducated right is correctly assuming they'll be paying for the uneducated left's programs I'm just saying that it's a correct assumption on their part, I'm not saying that they're correctly assessing whether or not it's also better for them too to have the same programs. I know how the people on the right think but I guess I'm having a Hell of a time trying to explain it to people who don't think that way.
Folks on the right like to think of themselves as self-sufficient. That's a real source of pride for them. Paying for somebody else's 'free shit' is so anathema to them that they won't be able to see beyond that.
What I've had my own eyes opened to lately, however, is that whenever 'free shit' is offered to these folks, many of them don't turn it down anymore. 40 or 50 years ago that wouldn't have been the case.
I can already see the complaint coming that these are just allegations. But then, the one Maryland district that was marshaled as evidence of "both sides" being culpable is also a mere allegation.
Yes, and it's a valid one. The Democrats had a very specific reason for going through with those lawsuits at this time, namely, to increase their chances of winning this past election. Your own source even says this is their motivation. No surprise that so many of these were heavily contested states this election.
So yeah, i'd say Democrats had far more incentive to be challenging maps on the mere possibility that they could squeak out a win.
Why is it that allegations are so desperately wanted to be accepted as true before verification? Mere time will tell.
Again, the North Carolina numbers from the NYT article I cited can be verified by you at any time. If you're sincerely interested in that kind of thing.
They're the only ones even trying? I mean, it's part of their platform, and it's nominally what they say they want. My brand of activism is to support the political party that is closest to doing what I think should be done, and then actively trying to push them in a direct that they will start doing those things. That means I typically vote in primaries for progressives, and other people who signal that they'll move the country in the direction I want.
They are not trying, they are making empty promises they never, ever, and, I can not stress this enough, *ever* intend to fulfill. Joe Biden is going to try to give you universal health care and free education like Donald Trump is still going to build a wall on the southern border. There is not any real possibility whatsoever in achieving these things by the support of mainstream democrats who aren't named Bernie Sanders. That it is part of their platform is mere red meat for progressives, it will never even be considered.
I basically just don't understand why nearly every liberal minded person I know swears by the free-or-almost-free education and healthcare regime, and yet they also all inevitably vote for someone who clearly never intends to deliver. It's a futile cycle that ends with them never getting what they want. Not even incremental improvements.
The Democratic Party suffered a string of defeats during Carter and before Clinton. The party did a lot to reform itself and then become more competitive in elections.
Maybe we can quibble that those reforms didn't result in good policy for working class people. But the party did respond to voter preferences. I see no reason why the same dynamic cannot play out in reverse.
Totally random, but one thing I am hoping for and feel is realistic out of a Biden presidency is more investment into Amtrak. He has supported such measures before and apparently it's something many expect to happen.
I hate flying for a number of reasons and if I travel cross country I do it by train. It's very comfortable, if a bit slow. Zero hassle at all. If you have the time, it's clearly the best way to travel. I once went from PA to California in a series of trains and hotels. I worked at a hotel at the time and had discounts so it wasn't as expensive at it may seem. Good times.
They are not close to total control. They won't be taking voting power away from powerless farmers and truck drivers, as excited as they are at the prospect, any time soon. It looks like, as much as they hate it, they might actually have to throw the working class a bone once in a blue moon. Democracy isn't as exciting when you realize you also have to help people in the country you might not like very much.
Why Republicans never throw bones to working class. They just say the immigrats are stealing yer jerbs and abortion bad then give the elites a tax cut once they get in power - every single time. None if that actually helps the working class.
They are not close to total control. They won't be taking voting power away from powerless farmers and truck drivers, as excited as they are at the prospect, any time soon. It looks like, as much as they hate it, they might actually have to throw the working class a bone once in a blue moon. Democracy isn't as exciting when you realize you also have to help people in the country you might not like very much.
Why Republicans never throw bones to working class. They just say the immigrats are stealing yer jerbs and abortion bad then give the elites a tax cut once they get in power - every single time. None if that actually helps the working class.
Democrats always focus on Trump's immigration rhetoric but forget that it was the combo of being anti mass immigration + anti outsourcing that really made him the working class candidate in 2016. He publicly fought with companies over the outsourcing of jobs. He acted like it was going to be a primary focus of his Presidency. This is one of the big reasons I took a chance on him. Whether or not he could, he promised to try to bring back industries gutted by anti working class legislation drafted by corporate interests. Empty promises, which is why I think the Republican Party needs to move beyond Trump but remember what it was about him that won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Democrats didn't even try, and didn't try this time either. They just said Trump was bad. Okay, but that doesn't help anyone affected by mass industry death either.
Joe Biden didn't run on universal health care. He ran on adding a public option to the ACA. In fact, him not promising universal healthcare was one of the planks of his platform in the primary. Why?? Because many people see it as utterly impossible to achieve, even if they want it. They didn't believe someone pushing for it (and universal college, and eliminating all student loan debt) was remotely electable. This was the precise calculation of every Democratic primary after Nevada. It may not have been my PREFERENCE, but it now seems clear to me these voters were far more in-tune with what was needed than I was, because the socialism charge stuck to Biden like a Post-It note that has lost all it's adhesive.
This just exemplifies how non-radical the Democratic Party is. They nominated a centrist whose life- long mission has been working across the aisle, and the other side countered with a certifiable lunatic. Which is why I find this discussion ridiculous. I don't really give a fuck what liberal posters are saying in Youtube comments or on this forum. The person the Democrats nominated was, at his core, an attempt to appeal to fence-sitting Republicans.
Biden's entire stump speech is about reaching out to people who didn't vote for him (as opposed to Trump, who views blue states as hostile nations). But I think the last week has been pretty solid evidence of where it has gotten him reaching out to the right. They believe he has manipulated vote counts, but ONLY in select states, and ONLY for the Presidential race, and no other races on the ballot. So, again, he's a better man than I am, but WHAT'S THE POINT of outreach if this is the response to an entirely good faith effort to talk to them??
Socialism = State controlling the means of production
You've been corrected on this more than once so you really have no excuse to not know it:
Socialism is workers controlling the means of production. The ideal is that the state itself would wither away (admittedly not something that has happened in real life).
Co-ops, collectively owned by the people who work in such places, are socialist. The state owning businesses is not socialism. It's Marxist-Leninism and perhaps Maoism, which I won't say isn't "true communism" but it's not socialist in the sense as described by Marx and others.
Also, socialism is significantly better than capitalism, given how capitalism is all about exploiting workers and extracting greater value from their labor than they get paid.
And just so it's clear there is not one single sitting US politician at the Federal level who could reasonably be called "socialist."
You wouldn't know it from how we talk about politics, but this remains a mostly conservative country.
Rallying these people around a populist Republican who talks first and foremost about working class issues is my political goal. When people here dream of conservative mass defeat, I do too, but for different reasons.
I have hope it remains possible. A slim hope, but having the legacy of a very popular President among conservatives along with the most popular conservative media figure essentially on board with this agenda is not nothing.
You know, this is reminding me of something. The left will often get smeared with supporting eugenics for being in favor of a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. But the whole "choice" thing seems to get left out of the equation. Somewhere along the line, being "pro-choice" became "pro-abortion". That's a bunch of nonsense. I fully support a woman's right to have ten kids (even though I wouldn't recommend it) as much as I support her right to have none.
But what is being talked about here is different. If you are providing a monetary benefit to sterilizing a woman, then the government who is offering that money is, by default, ENCOURAGING sterilization. So you can say all you want it's a choice but 1.) it's not much a choice at all if you have no money otherwise and 2.) it's only a matter of time before ENCOURGED sterilization become MADATORY sterilization. I see no way it wouldn't. And it only gets more horrific from there.
If said woman has to get sterilization in order to continue receiving welfare benefits, that is not encouragement, that is coercion. It may not be mandatory on paper, but if people do not want to go hungry or without shelter, etc., they're required to do it.
I basically just don't understand why nearly every liberal minded person I know swears by the free-or-almost-free education and healthcare regime, and yet they also all inevitably vote for someone who clearly never intends to deliver. It's a futile cycle that ends with them never getting what they want. Not even incremental improvements.
Occasionally it's due to a projection of aspiration on a vague platform. Lots of people pinned hope on Obama (and in fairness, Obama did deliver something closer to universal healthcare, even if it wasn't what a lot of Democrats ideally would've wanted).
Sometimes it's an understanding that incrementalism is necessary, that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. Because, again, sometimes incrementalism does happen.
But mostly? It's negative partisanship. The fear of what the Republican will do is so high that the only plausible alternative (the Democrat) must be voted for to stave off catastrophe. Sometimes those fears are valid (Donald Trump was very, very bad for LGBTQ+ rights, although still not as bad as some feared), sometimes they are overblown, but the lesser of two evils gets a lot more attractive when the greater evil is so... great.
You see similar behaviour with Republicans. Even if Obama had bent all his efforts towards it when he had control of all three branches of congress, he couldn't really have "taken away the guns". At best he would've gotten a more stringent assault rifle ban or something equally incremental. But people feared it anyway. I'm sure you can think of other examples of wild fears about what Clinton (either one) or Obama would do once in office that turned out to be wildly off the mark (and some where they weren't). Hell, to use the most recent election, Trump claimed Biden was a harbinger of socialism and some people believed him, despite the fact that Biden and Harris both do not exactly have a history of being on the fringe left of Democratic politics, to say the least.
Here we go, comparing actual Republican policies to hypothetical Democratic ones. Trump ACTUALLY attempted to ban transgender soldiers from serving in the military. His Secretary of Education ACTUALLY removed protections for LQBTQ students in schools.
There IS no assault weapons ban to make more stringent. It expired during the Bush Administration. All the Obama Administration attempted to do, even the face of a two dozen 5-year old's getting mowed down in their own classroom, was more strict background checks. Basically, make people wait 24-48 hours before they get their gun. Nope, too radical for the party who is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Rifle Association.
Democrats make these incremental attempts because they know just how strong the opposition will be to them. And even the most basic, common sense reforms or alterations to existing policies are shut down sight unseen. The ACA, as I have said at least a dozen times, was yet ANOTHER attempt at reaching across the aisle. It was a fucking Republican plan. It was nearly identical to what Romney passed in MA on the state level. It might as well have been written by the Heritage Foundation. It was framed as the end of the American healthcare system for an entire summer by the Republicans, and cost the Democrats the House in 2010. And yet, lo and behold, the thing now has nearly 60% popularity in hindsight. And Republicans, to this VERY HOUR, are still trying to destroy it.
I guess I wasn't clear enough. I apologise. My point was "yes, there are differences, but there are more similarities than there are differences, which is why you can compare the two". Does that make more sense?
By the by, I do not deliberately hedge on distinctions without meaning. If I bring it up, it's because I believe the distinction does in fact have meaning. You might disagree! But I don't think it's helpful to assume bad intentions in discussion.
Okay. I'll refrain from assuming bad intentions. I've seen the arguing tactic in the past where one rejects every point and substitute even a nominal difference in order to avoid conceding on any point under any circumstances. Based on the past 5 pages, it's hard for me to see the difference. I'll try to keep an open mind.
Okay, your point is taken. I don't really get where you're going with it, though, unless you're arguing something has changed between 2016 and 2020 that will leads to future Democratic majorities in the House (since permanent Democratic control of political power was what was under discussion when you made your original post). If so, what do you think it is?
I'm not advancing a theory that Democrats will meaningfully win house majorities into the future. I was just pointing out that I didnt think it was a useful argument to use 2018 as the most relevant comparison to Democratic house pickups in 2020.
That's a fair point, but I would counter that there's no strong evidence that it was specifically this part of Joe Biden's platform that made him win the primaries. Actually, I would argue that there is rather strong evidence that what made him be the winner of the primaries was, in no particular order, 1) name recognition, 2) Obama's enduring popularity, 3) dominant performance with black voters, and 4) being on the upswing and broadly acceptable to most parts of the Democratic coalition at a critical point, and thus the best choice for centrist Democrats opposing Bernie Sanders at the point where he looked likely to win the nomination.
Just looking at this forum, it was a very common opinion at the time amongst leftists that Biden more or less stood for nothing.
I think this sort of points out that you cannot separate the two. Centrist Democrats rallied to Biden (despite his campaign finishing in worse position than Buttigieg's to that point in the primary) in part because he was viably seen as someone who would be less divisive in a post Trump USA. I do agree that those other things are all major contributing factors in his ultimately successful bid, but Biden was pretty emphatic from the beginning that his candidacy reflected a "return to normalcy". I'd include one other category:
He was seen as the most likely to be able to beat Trump. That was in part because he was seen as someone who had crossover appeal (rightfully so, it appears) - due to his stances.
They are not trying, they are making empty promises they never, ever, and, I can not stress this enough, *ever* intend to fulfill. Joe Biden is going to try to give you universal health care and free education like Donald Trump is still going to build a wall on the southern border. There is not any real possibility whatsoever in achieving these things by the support of mainstream democrats who aren't named Bernie Sanders. That it is part of their platform is mere red meat for progressives, it will never even be considered.
I basically just don't understand why nearly every liberal minded person I know swears by the free-or-almost-free education and healthcare regime, and yet they also all inevitably vote for someone who clearly never intends to deliver. It's a futile cycle that ends with them never getting what they want. Not even incremental improvements.
I mean... I dont know what else to say other than I disagree? I didnt specifically say Biden was going to be the one giving it - I made that pretty clear in my post.
You're free to have a borderline nihilist belief in the trustworthiness of politicians - but that doesnt extend to me.
You know, this is reminding me of something. The left will often get smeared with supporting eugenics for being in favor of a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. But the whole "choice" thing seems to get left out of the equation. Somewhere along the line, being "pro-choice" became "pro-abortion". That's a bunch of nonsense. I fully support a woman's right to have ten kids (even though I wouldn't recommend it) as much as I support her right to have none.
But what is being talked about here is different. If you are providing a monetary benefit to sterilizing a woman, then the government who is offering that money is, by default, ENCOURAGING sterilization. So you can say all you want it's a choice but 1.) it's not much a choice at all if you have no money otherwise and 2.) it's only a matter of time before ENCOURGED sterilization become MADATORY sterilization. I see no way it wouldn't. And it only gets more horrific from there.
If said woman has to get sterilization in order to continue receiving welfare benefits, that is not encouragement, that is coercion. It may not be mandatory on paper, but if people do not want to go hungry or without shelter, etc., they're required to do it.
If said person has to get job in order to continue receiving salary benefits, that is not encouragement. That is coercion. It may not be mandatory on paper, but if people do not want to go hungry or without shelter, etc., they're required to do it
I an not advocating, just re writting and changing an single word.
Socialism = State controlling the means of production
You've been corrected on this more than once so you really have no excuse to not know it:
Socialism is workers controlling the means of production. The ideal is that the state itself would wither away (admittedly not something that has happened in real life).
Co-ops, collectively owned by the people who work in such places, are socialist. The state owning businesses is not socialism. It's Marxist-Leninism and perhaps Maoism, which I won't say isn't "true communism" but it's not socialist in the sense as described by Marx and others.
Also, socialism is significantly better than capitalism, given how capitalism is all about exploiting workers and extracting greater value from their labor than they get paid.
And just so it's clear there is not one single sitting US politician at the Federal level who could reasonably be called "socialist."
Whoa, I forgot I'm still like seven pages behind.
Then I ask again, why NOBODY, I repeat, NOBODY managed to implement the "real socialism". Is ironic how Venezuela and Peronism was "real socialism" before the socialism inevitably lead to collapse then "is not real socialism".
And capitalism is not about exploiting workers. And the theory of labor value is extremely nonsensical. For eg, according to that theory, if I spend a decade dinging a hole, that hole would be more valuable than ultra fertile lands. The believe on that theory kills all interest in developing labor saving devices.
"you are exploiting the workers"
"fine I will automate the entire production line"
"no, you are killing the workers job"
See? Jobs aren't different than anything else. they are subjected to demand and offer.
If capitalism is so evil, why Venezuelas prefers to be illegal immigrants in French Guiana, an "colony" than under the "not real socialism"?
You wouldn't know it from how we talk about politics, but this remains a mostly conservative country.
Rallying these people around a populist Republican who talks first and foremost about working class issues is my political goal. When people here dream of conservative mass defeat, I do too, but for different reasons.
I have hope it remains possible. A slim hope, but having the legacy of a very popular President among conservatives along with the most popular conservative media figure essentially on board with this agenda is not nothing.
Just going to use this opportunity to highlight the tortured analysis required to reach this conclusion. The size, geographic shape and number of states has nothing to do with the political alignment of the country.
It's important to remember the history of how states entered the union and how that dictated their location and size. There was no unified identity in territories before their entrance into statehood. In fact, in many territories this was the opposite. Instead, pre-Civil War states were almost always admitted on a one-for-one basis. One slave state for one free state. So that slavery would not be outlawed.
If you look at a map there is one curious state that fully bisects the Missouri Compromise line that runs across the Western US -- the conservative boogeyman California. Why is this state so geographically large and not split along that line? Because its early settlers rejected slavery and did not want one free California and one slave California. Their reward for that forward thinking? Reduced representation in the Senate and Electoral College and in conservative analyses of the country.
I have a plan. How about having our educators get back to teaching mathematics, the scientific method and critical thinking instead of pseudo-scientific political claptrap? How about training our children how to guard their minds from bullshit instead of training them to be obedient consumers? How about treating all human beings the same instead of dividing them into little sub-groups, separating them and turning them against each other? How about politicians actually doing any of the fucking things they promise instead of parading the same old Goddamned promises every 2-4 years to get everybody fired up until the election is over?
That sounds nice, but education outside of pure math and theoretical physics will always be seen as political.
Even for the Sciences Biology & Chemistry -> vaccines and evolution, and let's not start with History.
The fact is that if this would be done consequently, the Christian Right would be (and currently is) the first to cry foul play.
On the topic of Bipartisanship and both sides being the same: my perspective is fairly standard left wing here, but I think this is harder than it sounds. I think Obama - even while in full control of all 3 branches of the Government - did very much seek a wider consensus. On the other hand ever since Newt Gingrich the Republic party has chosen extreme partisanship as an election strategy. While I would like there to be a bridging, I honestly have problems seeing how to reach many of those Republicans anymore.
And I think the both sides debate is easy to get wrong - if Person A says Person B did bad thing X and person B says Person A did bad thing X first then you can't simply claim both sides are the same - you need to evaluate the merit's of the claims.
It's been brought up before here, but while there are superficial similarities between the 2020 election and the 2000 election, they just do not hold up to closer scrutiny for me. It's the same with the 2016 election - Hillary conceded, establishment Democrats accepted the result of the election and it only got really heated when Trump fired Comey, which still seems like a genuinely shady move to me.
It's easy to make predictions in a vacuum, but I would not be surprised at all if in the opposite situation Republicans would have initiated Impeachment procedures much earlier with more Democrat support.
On the topic of Bipartisanship and both sides being the same: my perspective is fairly standard left wing here, but I think this is harder than it sounds. I think Obama - even while in full control of all 3 branches of the Government - did very much seek a wider consensus. On the other hand ever since Newt Gingrich the Republic party has chosen extreme partisanship as an election strategy. While I would like there to be a bridging, I honestly have problems seeing how to reach many of those Republicans anymore.
And I think the both sides debate is easy to get wrong - if Person A says Person B did bad thing X and person B says Person A did bad thing X first then you can't simply claim both sides are the same - you need to evaluate the merit's of the claims.
It's been brought up before here, but while there are superficial similarities between the 2020 election and the 2000 election, they just do not hold up to closer scrutiny for me. It's the same with the 2016 election - Hillary conceded, establishment Democrats accepted the result of the election and it only got really heated when Trump fired Comey, which still seems like a genuinely shady move to me.
It's easy to make predictions in a vacuum, but I would not be surprised at all if in the opposite situation Republicans would have initiated Impeachment procedures much earlier with more Democrat support.
There was open PREEMPTIVE talk of impeaching Hilary before she was even elected simply on the basis that she was, in fact, Hilary Clinton. It was viewed as a crime in and of itself. And as much as we want to grant him saintly status given what has happened since he passed, even John McCain was on board with the idea that, should she be elected, Hilary Clinton would NOT be allowed to appoint a Supreme Court Justice for her entire four year term. The first was openly discussed in conservative media, the later was just flat-out the position of the Republican Party, endorsed by what would now be described as "reasonable" Republicans.
Does ANYONE believe Biden is going to be allowed to appoint a Supreme Court Justice should Stephen Breyer retire if the Democrats don't win both the Senate run-offs in Georgia?? If you do believe it, are you currently under the influence of any drugs or alcohol?? Because you should share it with the rest of us.
I have a plan. How about having our educators get back to teaching mathematics, the scientific method and critical thinking instead of pseudo-scientific political claptrap? How about training our children how to guard their minds from bullshit instead of training them to be obedient consumers? How about treating all human beings the same instead of dividing them into little sub-groups, separating them and turning them against each other? How about politicians actually doing any of the fucking things they promise instead of parading the same old Goddamned promises every 2-4 years to get everybody fired up until the election is over?
That sounds nice, but education outside of pure math and theoretical physics will always be seen as political.
Even for the Sciences Biology & Chemistry -> vaccines and evolution, and let's not start with History.
The fact is that if this would be done consequently, the Christian Right would be (and currently is) the first to cry foul play.
To add to my own post here: even applied mathematics would be seen as polarizing. If in Statistics (my own field) debating the gender wage gap is a good example.
First you have the naive gender wage gap, which tells you something that is important but does not allow you to pinpoint the causes.
Then you have the adjusted modelling that is peddled by some economists to demonstrate it is not real, but those use methods that are not valid for causal inference in the context by adjusting for all sort of factors which are likely to be causally influenced by gender. This is actually the more dangerous take as it seems to offer a more nuanced view of the truth that is however based on fallacious reasoning that is hard to detect without training. It very much lends itself to the Dunning-Kruger effect.
And if you really want to tackle the question you need to do research into history and structures and any model you will come up with will be seen as being politically biased by someone.
@Ayiekie I understand your desire to get common agreement on what the problem is before discussing solutions. However, it doesn't appear to be likely that such agreement will be reached among posters in the near term. You mentioned that you had views on at least a direction of travel, even if not full solutions - I'd be interested in those views. It may also be that discussing something slightly more concrete would help approach the issue of what the problem is from a different perspective.
My own feeling is that, while I recognize compromise requires 2 parties to negotiate (and a willingness to do that is not always evident) that's still the best route to attempt to bridge deep political divides. I appreciate that I'm relatively optimistic in my general outlook, but there have been plenty of examples in recent history of apparently intractable disputes that have been resolved by talking. A couple of examples of those include:
- the peaceful transfer of power in South Africa. That was followed, even more impressively I think, by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings that made transparent the many abuses of the previous regime, while helping to defuse, not stoke, the tensions those had caused.
- the Good Friday agreement over the future of Northern Ireland that gave a voice to all sides.
In neither case of course have all minds been changed or all problems solved, but it seems clear to me that things now are far better than they were - or might have been expected to be.
In such conflicts it is a pre-requisite that both sides are willing to talk. Mandela, rightly, gets applauded for his role in South Africa, but it was arguably a lot easier for him to negotiate and compromise than FW de Klerk and the white South Africans. The fact that the latter did so I'm sure partly reflects that they were tired of conflict, but also that Mandela was able to successfully express empathy with them. This radio program talks, mainly in the context of the Israel/Palestine conflict, about just how much of a difference that can make to the other side's willingness to listen to and understand your own point of view.
Another possible way to cut through political noise is the use of citizen panels. An incredibly successful recent example of that was in Ireland, when reviewing the question of abortion. The proposal to change the constitution that emerged from that would have been a total non-starter if just put forward by a political party directly. However, the detailed consideration by the panel, and the high level of consensus that emerged from that, took away much of the emotional baggage and led to a comfortable and (relatively) uncontroversial referendum result that removed the constitutional bar to abortion.
The Irish example was a national debate, but the same sort of process could go on at a much more local level. In principle there's no reason for instance why local branches of the Democratic and Republican parties shouldn't agree to using a citizen's panel to consider their own controversial issues - like redistricting, industrial pollution or local taxes.
You wouldn't know it from how we talk about politics, but this remains a mostly conservative country.
I have hope it remains possible. A slim hope, but having the legacy of a very popular President among conservatives along with the most popular conservative media figure essentially on board with this agenda is not nothing.
"Conservatives Greatly Outnumber Liberals in 19 U.S. States", impressive?
The choices respondents were given were
are you a Conservative or Moderate or Liberal. I don't know about you but I wouldn't call myself a liberal. It's become a dumb term means nothing pretty much because Conservatives have strawmanned it to death for years and policy wise there's pretty much none but keep on the middle of the road pro-corporare status quo. So if you called yourself a moderate in this poll, the liberal numbers (and conservative numbers) go down.
Here's the list where Conservatives greatly outnumber liberals and population (millions)
Mississippi: 2.9
Alabama: 4.9
South Dakota: .8
Louisiana: 4.6
Wyoming : .5
West Virginia : 1.7
Tennessee: 6.8
Arkansas : 3
Utah : 3.2
South Carolina: 5.1
Oklahoma : 3.9
Idaho: 1.7
Alaska: .7
Indiana: 6.7
Kansas: 2.9
Montana: 1
North Dakota : .7
Missouri : 6.1
Georgia : 10.6
Combined population of those states: 67.8 million
Total US population: 328.2 million
Population of states where Conservatives do not greatly outnumber liberals: 260.4
What's this data show us? Conservatives are overrepresented in our government because they have many low population states where they greatly outnumber liberals are are probably going to blindly vote Republican. These 19 states get a guaranteed 38 senators for Republicans out of 100 total.
What should the headline be instead of "Conservatives Greatly Outnumber Liberals in 19 U.S. States"?
How about "The Vast Majority of Americans Do Not Live In States Where Conservatives Greatly Outnumber Liberals".
If you look up attitudes, for specific policy positions this conversation might get more interesting but you'll likely find that Americans do not value the things Conservatives typically push.
You wouldn't know it from how we talk about politics, but this remains a mostly conservative country.
Rallying these people around a populist Republican who talks first and foremost about working class issues is my political goal. When people here dream of conservative mass defeat, I do too, but for different reasons.
I have hope it remains possible. A slim hope, but having the legacy of a very popular President among conservatives along with the most popular conservative media figure essentially on board with this agenda is not nothing.
Just going to use this opportunity to highlight the tortured analysis required to reach this conclusion. The size, geographic shape and number of states has nothing to do with the political alignment of the country.
It's important to remember the history of how states entered the union and how that dictated their location and size. There was no unified identity in territories before their entrance into statehood. In fact, in many territories this was the opposite. Instead, pre-Civil War states were almost always admitted on a one-for-one basis. One slave state for one free state. So that slavery would not be outlawed.
If you look at a map there is one curious state that fully bisects the Missouri Compromise line that runs across the Western US -- the conservative boogeyman California. Why is this state so geographically large and not split along that line? Because its early settlers rejected slavery and did not want one free California and one slave California. Their reward for that forward thinking? Reduced representation in the Senate and Electoral College and in conservative analyses of the country.
I knew it would cause a defensive reaction. Any time you mention that the entire country is not, in fact, populated entirely by people like you, you tend to get one.
For all your hand waving and irrelevant tangents about slavery and state sizes, conservatives outnumber liberals nationally by about 9 points. The only "tortured analysis" is one that tries to paint over that fact.
You wouldn't know it from how we talk about politics, but this remains a mostly conservative country.
Rallying these people around a populist Republican who talks first and foremost about working class issues is my political goal. When people here dream of conservative mass defeat, I do too, but for different reasons.
I have hope it remains possible. A slim hope, but having the legacy of a very popular President among conservatives along with the most popular conservative media figure essentially on board with this agenda is not nothing.
Just going to use this opportunity to highlight the tortured analysis required to reach this conclusion. The size, geographic shape and number of states has nothing to do with the political alignment of the country.
It's important to remember the history of how states entered the union and how that dictated their location and size. There was no unified identity in territories before their entrance into statehood. In fact, in many territories this was the opposite. Instead, pre-Civil War states were almost always admitted on a one-for-one basis. One slave state for one free state. So that slavery would not be outlawed.
If you look at a map there is one curious state that fully bisects the Missouri Compromise line that runs across the Western US -- the conservative boogeyman California. Why is this state so geographically large and not split along that line? Because its early settlers rejected slavery and did not want one free California and one slave California. Their reward for that forward thinking? Reduced representation in the Senate and Electoral College and in conservative analyses of the country.
I knew it would cause a defensive reaction. Any time you mention that the entire country is not, in fact, populated entirely by people like you, you tend to get one.
For all your hand waving and irrelevant tangents about slavery and state sizes, conservatives outnumber liberals nationally by about 9 points. The only "tortured analysis" is one that tries to paint over that fact.
That is true, though the same source says Democrats used to describe them as moderates more often than as liberal. From what you usually write on here, I've the feeling you would consider most of those moderates to be liberals, and the liberals to be far left.
You wouldn't know it from how we talk about politics, but this remains a mostly conservative country.
Rallying these people around a populist Republican who talks first and foremost about working class issues is my political goal. When people here dream of conservative mass defeat, I do too, but for different reasons.
I have hope it remains possible. A slim hope, but having the legacy of a very popular President among conservatives along with the most popular conservative media figure essentially on board with this agenda is not nothing.
Just going to use this opportunity to highlight the tortured analysis required to reach this conclusion. The size, geographic shape and number of states has nothing to do with the political alignment of the country.
It's important to remember the history of how states entered the union and how that dictated their location and size. There was no unified identity in territories before their entrance into statehood. In fact, in many territories this was the opposite. Instead, pre-Civil War states were almost always admitted on a one-for-one basis. One slave state for one free state. So that slavery would not be outlawed.
If you look at a map there is one curious state that fully bisects the Missouri Compromise line that runs across the Western US -- the conservative boogeyman California. Why is this state so geographically large and not split along that line? Because its early settlers rejected slavery and did not want one free California and one slave California. Their reward for that forward thinking? Reduced representation in the Senate and Electoral College and in conservative analyses of the country.
I knew it would cause a defensive reaction. Any time you mention that the entire country is not, in fact, populated entirely by people like you, you tend to get one.
For all your hand waving and irrelevant tangents about slavery and state sizes, conservatives outnumber liberals nationally by about 9 points. The only "tortured analysis" is one that tries to paint over that fact.
That is true, though the same source says Democrats used to describe them as moderates more often than as liberal. From what you usually write on here, I've the feeling you would consider most of those moderates to be liberals, and the liberals to be far left.
The people who describe themselves as moderates are, in my opinion, swing voters. People who can go either way and are usually heavily contested for every election. My point in bringing up the map itself is to show the value in trying to appeal to, and alter, the GOP to fit working class ends rather than a rejection of it. Given the conservative tendency to reject mainstream candidates or build movements to pressure the GOP from the outside, like the Tea Partiers, I see this as not only realistic but easily achievable. A conservative party has a natural appeal to a majority of voters in most states, exactly the kind of thing you need to win elections.
I was making the point earlier, that the Democratic Party wins elections by appealing to centrists. The dream of a permanent progressive or democratic coalition is just that, a pipe dream. We have been talking a lot about the potential for bipartisanship, and that map makes it more or less clear that a one party state isn't coming up any time soon. Bipartisan consensus is the only way forward.
Military lying to leadership and refusing to withdraw troops when ordered to. If there was ever a dangerous precedent, it's the military defying legitimate orders and feeling comfortable enough to joke about it later.
Sounds to me like Trump is simply too dumb or uninterested to know the difference. Once again, if he gave a shit, he'd do something about it, just like his supposed populist economic policies. His foreign policy "dovishness" was more rhetoric backed up by basically nothing. The guy would constantly talk about withdrawing troops from all sorts of theaters and never actually do it. If it's because he was too impotent to get the message across to the military brass, ask yourself why he is viewed as such an "alpha", and why he would never prioritize doing so. Twitter proclamations are not troop movement orders.
All the stuff people like yourself liked Trump for was surface-level bullshit he never cared about and didn't follow through with. He's the President of the United States. If he cared, especially in regards to troop levels, it would have gotten done. But that would have required a.) him asking about it more than once and b.) flash cards to explain the process to a 5-year old.
You wouldn't know it from how we talk about politics, but this remains a mostly conservative country.
Rallying these people around a populist Republican who talks first and foremost about working class issues is my political goal. When people here dream of conservative mass defeat, I do too, but for different reasons.
I have hope it remains possible. A slim hope, but having the legacy of a very popular President among conservatives along with the most popular conservative media figure essentially on board with this agenda is not nothing.
Just going to use this opportunity to highlight the tortured analysis required to reach this conclusion. The size, geographic shape and number of states has nothing to do with the political alignment of the country.
It's important to remember the history of how states entered the union and how that dictated their location and size. There was no unified identity in territories before their entrance into statehood. In fact, in many territories this was the opposite. Instead, pre-Civil War states were almost always admitted on a one-for-one basis. One slave state for one free state. So that slavery would not be outlawed.
If you look at a map there is one curious state that fully bisects the Missouri Compromise line that runs across the Western US -- the conservative boogeyman California. Why is this state so geographically large and not split along that line? Because its early settlers rejected slavery and did not want one free California and one slave California. Their reward for that forward thinking? Reduced representation in the Senate and Electoral College and in conservative analyses of the country.
I knew it would cause a defensive reaction. Any time you mention that the entire country is not, in fact, populated entirely by people like you, you tend to get one.
For all your hand waving and irrelevant tangents about slavery and state sizes, conservatives outnumber liberals nationally by about 9 points. The only "tortured analysis" is one that tries to paint over that fact.
You constantly say slavery is "irrelevant" to these discussions when it has been pointed out on numerous occasions that when it comes to the Electoral College and the admission of new states to the union, it was not only relevant, but a CENTRAL component of what took place in both cases. Even if you disagree to the EXTENT slavery was the deciding factor (and in the later case it was literally the main cause of the Civil War), saying it had no bearing whatsoever is just completely historically inaccurate. The EC is quite literally why African-Americans were considered 3/5ths of a human being. The 3/5ths Compromise. The history of "working across the aisle" in the US.
You're someone who believes in the power of "culture". Imagine how long it takes to shake the perception that your people are only 60% human when that was a founding principle of the country. Because when you see nearly EVERY place Republicans are saying ballots were fraudulent, the answer to this question is clearly, "more than 150 years".
All the stuff people like yourself liked Trump for was surface-level bullshit he never cared about and didn't follow through with. He's the President of the United States. If he cared, especially in regards to troop levels, it would have gotten done.
I think you are massively downplaying this. I'm sure he believed it was done, considering he was being lied to by his military advisers and assured that it was. Do you expect the military to lie to the Executive Branch about military matters? This is absolutely beyond the pale and raises the possibility of unsanctioned rogue military action. There is absolutely no excuse for this. "Trump is bad" doesn't suddenly allow the military to ignore the Commander in Chief and make decisions on its own.
Comments
Well I'm talking more about feelings and perceptions than reality. When I say the uneducated right is correctly assuming they'll be paying for the uneducated left's programs I'm just saying that it's a correct assumption on their part, I'm not saying that they're correctly assessing whether or not it's also better for them too to have the same programs. I know how the people on the right think but I guess I'm having a Hell of a time trying to explain it to people who don't think that way.
Folks on the right like to think of themselves as self-sufficient. That's a real source of pride for them. Paying for somebody else's 'free shit' is so anathema to them that they won't be able to see beyond that.
What I've had my own eyes opened to lately, however, is that whenever 'free shit' is offered to these folks, many of them don't turn it down anymore. 40 or 50 years ago that wouldn't have been the case.
Again, the North Carolina numbers from the NYT article I cited can be verified by you at any time. If you're sincerely interested in that kind of thing.
They are not trying, they are making empty promises they never, ever, and, I can not stress this enough, *ever* intend to fulfill. Joe Biden is going to try to give you universal health care and free education like Donald Trump is still going to build a wall on the southern border. There is not any real possibility whatsoever in achieving these things by the support of mainstream democrats who aren't named Bernie Sanders. That it is part of their platform is mere red meat for progressives, it will never even be considered.
I basically just don't understand why nearly every liberal minded person I know swears by the free-or-almost-free education and healthcare regime, and yet they also all inevitably vote for someone who clearly never intends to deliver. It's a futile cycle that ends with them never getting what they want. Not even incremental improvements.
Maybe we can quibble that those reforms didn't result in good policy for working class people. But the party did respond to voter preferences. I see no reason why the same dynamic cannot play out in reverse.
I hate flying for a number of reasons and if I travel cross country I do it by train. It's very comfortable, if a bit slow. Zero hassle at all. If you have the time, it's clearly the best way to travel. I once went from PA to California in a series of trains and hotels. I worked at a hotel at the time and had discounts so it wasn't as expensive at it may seem. Good times.
Why Republicans never throw bones to working class. They just say the immigrats are stealing yer jerbs and abortion bad then give the elites a tax cut once they get in power - every single time. None if that actually helps the working class.
Democrats always focus on Trump's immigration rhetoric but forget that it was the combo of being anti mass immigration + anti outsourcing that really made him the working class candidate in 2016. He publicly fought with companies over the outsourcing of jobs. He acted like it was going to be a primary focus of his Presidency. This is one of the big reasons I took a chance on him. Whether or not he could, he promised to try to bring back industries gutted by anti working class legislation drafted by corporate interests. Empty promises, which is why I think the Republican Party needs to move beyond Trump but remember what it was about him that won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Democrats didn't even try, and didn't try this time either. They just said Trump was bad. Okay, but that doesn't help anyone affected by mass industry death either.
This just exemplifies how non-radical the Democratic Party is. They nominated a centrist whose life- long mission has been working across the aisle, and the other side countered with a certifiable lunatic. Which is why I find this discussion ridiculous. I don't really give a fuck what liberal posters are saying in Youtube comments or on this forum. The person the Democrats nominated was, at his core, an attempt to appeal to fence-sitting Republicans.
Biden's entire stump speech is about reaching out to people who didn't vote for him (as opposed to Trump, who views blue states as hostile nations). But I think the last week has been pretty solid evidence of where it has gotten him reaching out to the right. They believe he has manipulated vote counts, but ONLY in select states, and ONLY for the Presidential race, and no other races on the ballot. So, again, he's a better man than I am, but WHAT'S THE POINT of outreach if this is the response to an entirely good faith effort to talk to them??
You've been corrected on this more than once so you really have no excuse to not know it:
Socialism is workers controlling the means of production. The ideal is that the state itself would wither away (admittedly not something that has happened in real life).
Co-ops, collectively owned by the people who work in such places, are socialist. The state owning businesses is not socialism. It's Marxist-Leninism and perhaps Maoism, which I won't say isn't "true communism" but it's not socialist in the sense as described by Marx and others.
Also, socialism is significantly better than capitalism, given how capitalism is all about exploiting workers and extracting greater value from their labor than they get paid.
And just so it's clear there is not one single sitting US politician at the Federal level who could reasonably be called "socialist."
Whoa, I forgot I'm still like seven pages behind.
Rallying these people around a populist Republican who talks first and foremost about working class issues is my political goal. When people here dream of conservative mass defeat, I do too, but for different reasons.
I have hope it remains possible. A slim hope, but having the legacy of a very popular President among conservatives along with the most popular conservative media figure essentially on board with this agenda is not nothing.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/247016/conservatives-greatly-outnumber-liberals-states.aspx
If said woman has to get sterilization in order to continue receiving welfare benefits, that is not encouragement, that is coercion. It may not be mandatory on paper, but if people do not want to go hungry or without shelter, etc., they're required to do it.
Here we go, comparing actual Republican policies to hypothetical Democratic ones. Trump ACTUALLY attempted to ban transgender soldiers from serving in the military. His Secretary of Education ACTUALLY removed protections for LQBTQ students in schools.
There IS no assault weapons ban to make more stringent. It expired during the Bush Administration. All the Obama Administration attempted to do, even the face of a two dozen 5-year old's getting mowed down in their own classroom, was more strict background checks. Basically, make people wait 24-48 hours before they get their gun. Nope, too radical for the party who is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Rifle Association.
Democrats make these incremental attempts because they know just how strong the opposition will be to them. And even the most basic, common sense reforms or alterations to existing policies are shut down sight unseen. The ACA, as I have said at least a dozen times, was yet ANOTHER attempt at reaching across the aisle. It was a fucking Republican plan. It was nearly identical to what Romney passed in MA on the state level. It might as well have been written by the Heritage Foundation. It was framed as the end of the American healthcare system for an entire summer by the Republicans, and cost the Democrats the House in 2010. And yet, lo and behold, the thing now has nearly 60% popularity in hindsight. And Republicans, to this VERY HOUR, are still trying to destroy it.
Okay. I'll refrain from assuming bad intentions. I've seen the arguing tactic in the past where one rejects every point and substitute even a nominal difference in order to avoid conceding on any point under any circumstances. Based on the past 5 pages, it's hard for me to see the difference. I'll try to keep an open mind.
I'm not advancing a theory that Democrats will meaningfully win house majorities into the future. I was just pointing out that I didnt think it was a useful argument to use 2018 as the most relevant comparison to Democratic house pickups in 2020.
I think this sort of points out that you cannot separate the two. Centrist Democrats rallied to Biden (despite his campaign finishing in worse position than Buttigieg's to that point in the primary) in part because he was viably seen as someone who would be less divisive in a post Trump USA. I do agree that those other things are all major contributing factors in his ultimately successful bid, but Biden was pretty emphatic from the beginning that his candidacy reflected a "return to normalcy". I'd include one other category:
He was seen as the most likely to be able to beat Trump. That was in part because he was seen as someone who had crossover appeal (rightfully so, it appears) - due to his stances.
I mean... I dont know what else to say other than I disagree? I didnt specifically say Biden was going to be the one giving it - I made that pretty clear in my post.
You're free to have a borderline nihilist belief in the trustworthiness of politicians - but that doesnt extend to me.
If said person has to get job in order to continue receiving salary benefits, that is not encouragement. That is coercion. It may not be mandatory on paper, but if people do not want to go hungry or without shelter, etc., they're required to do it
I an not advocating, just re writting and changing an single word.
Then I ask again, why NOBODY, I repeat, NOBODY managed to implement the "real socialism". Is ironic how Venezuela and Peronism was "real socialism" before the socialism inevitably lead to collapse then "is not real socialism".
And capitalism is not about exploiting workers. And the theory of labor value is extremely nonsensical. For eg, according to that theory, if I spend a decade dinging a hole, that hole would be more valuable than ultra fertile lands. The believe on that theory kills all interest in developing labor saving devices.
"you are exploiting the workers"
"fine I will automate the entire production line"
"no, you are killing the workers job"
See? Jobs aren't different than anything else. they are subjected to demand and offer.
If capitalism is so evil, why Venezuelas prefers to be illegal immigrants in French Guiana, an "colony" than under the "not real socialism"?
Just going to use this opportunity to highlight the tortured analysis required to reach this conclusion. The size, geographic shape and number of states has nothing to do with the political alignment of the country.
It's important to remember the history of how states entered the union and how that dictated their location and size. There was no unified identity in territories before their entrance into statehood. In fact, in many territories this was the opposite. Instead, pre-Civil War states were almost always admitted on a one-for-one basis. One slave state for one free state. So that slavery would not be outlawed.
If you look at a map there is one curious state that fully bisects the Missouri Compromise line that runs across the Western US -- the conservative boogeyman California. Why is this state so geographically large and not split along that line? Because its early settlers rejected slavery and did not want one free California and one slave California. Their reward for that forward thinking? Reduced representation in the Senate and Electoral College and in conservative analyses of the country.
That sounds nice, but education outside of pure math and theoretical physics will always be seen as political.
Even for the Sciences Biology & Chemistry -> vaccines and evolution, and let's not start with History.
The fact is that if this would be done consequently, the Christian Right would be (and currently is) the first to cry foul play.
And I think the both sides debate is easy to get wrong - if Person A says Person B did bad thing X and person B says Person A did bad thing X first then you can't simply claim both sides are the same - you need to evaluate the merit's of the claims.
It's been brought up before here, but while there are superficial similarities between the 2020 election and the 2000 election, they just do not hold up to closer scrutiny for me. It's the same with the 2016 election - Hillary conceded, establishment Democrats accepted the result of the election and it only got really heated when Trump fired Comey, which still seems like a genuinely shady move to me.
It's easy to make predictions in a vacuum, but I would not be surprised at all if in the opposite situation Republicans would have initiated Impeachment procedures much earlier with more Democrat support.
There was open PREEMPTIVE talk of impeaching Hilary before she was even elected simply on the basis that she was, in fact, Hilary Clinton. It was viewed as a crime in and of itself. And as much as we want to grant him saintly status given what has happened since he passed, even John McCain was on board with the idea that, should she be elected, Hilary Clinton would NOT be allowed to appoint a Supreme Court Justice for her entire four year term. The first was openly discussed in conservative media, the later was just flat-out the position of the Republican Party, endorsed by what would now be described as "reasonable" Republicans.
Does ANYONE believe Biden is going to be allowed to appoint a Supreme Court Justice should Stephen Breyer retire if the Democrats don't win both the Senate run-offs in Georgia?? If you do believe it, are you currently under the influence of any drugs or alcohol?? Because you should share it with the rest of us.
To add to my own post here: even applied mathematics would be seen as polarizing. If in Statistics (my own field) debating the gender wage gap is a good example.
First you have the naive gender wage gap, which tells you something that is important but does not allow you to pinpoint the causes.
Then you have the adjusted modelling that is peddled by some economists to demonstrate it is not real, but those use methods that are not valid for causal inference in the context by adjusting for all sort of factors which are likely to be causally influenced by gender. This is actually the more dangerous take as it seems to offer a more nuanced view of the truth that is however based on fallacious reasoning that is hard to detect without training. It very much lends itself to the Dunning-Kruger effect.
And if you really want to tackle the question you need to do research into history and structures and any model you will come up with will be seen as being politically biased by someone.
My own feeling is that, while I recognize compromise requires 2 parties to negotiate (and a willingness to do that is not always evident) that's still the best route to attempt to bridge deep political divides. I appreciate that I'm relatively optimistic in my general outlook, but there have been plenty of examples in recent history of apparently intractable disputes that have been resolved by talking. A couple of examples of those include:
- the peaceful transfer of power in South Africa. That was followed, even more impressively I think, by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings that made transparent the many abuses of the previous regime, while helping to defuse, not stoke, the tensions those had caused.
- the Good Friday agreement over the future of Northern Ireland that gave a voice to all sides.
In neither case of course have all minds been changed or all problems solved, but it seems clear to me that things now are far better than they were - or might have been expected to be.
In such conflicts it is a pre-requisite that both sides are willing to talk. Mandela, rightly, gets applauded for his role in South Africa, but it was arguably a lot easier for him to negotiate and compromise than FW de Klerk and the white South Africans. The fact that the latter did so I'm sure partly reflects that they were tired of conflict, but also that Mandela was able to successfully express empathy with them. This radio program talks, mainly in the context of the Israel/Palestine conflict, about just how much of a difference that can make to the other side's willingness to listen to and understand your own point of view.
Another possible way to cut through political noise is the use of citizen panels. An incredibly successful recent example of that was in Ireland, when reviewing the question of abortion. The proposal to change the constitution that emerged from that would have been a total non-starter if just put forward by a political party directly. However, the detailed consideration by the panel, and the high level of consensus that emerged from that, took away much of the emotional baggage and led to a comfortable and (relatively) uncontroversial referendum result that removed the constitutional bar to abortion.
The Irish example was a national debate, but the same sort of process could go on at a much more local level. In principle there's no reason for instance why local branches of the Democratic and Republican parties shouldn't agree to using a citizen's panel to consider their own controversial issues - like redistricting, industrial pollution or local taxes.
"Conservatives Greatly Outnumber Liberals in 19 U.S. States", impressive?
The choices respondents were given were
are you a Conservative or Moderate or Liberal. I don't know about you but I wouldn't call myself a liberal. It's become a dumb term means nothing pretty much because Conservatives have strawmanned it to death for years and policy wise there's pretty much none but keep on the middle of the road pro-corporare status quo. So if you called yourself a moderate in this poll, the liberal numbers (and conservative numbers) go down.
Here's the list where Conservatives greatly outnumber liberals and population (millions)
Mississippi: 2.9
Alabama: 4.9
South Dakota: .8
Louisiana: 4.6
Wyoming : .5
West Virginia : 1.7
Tennessee: 6.8
Arkansas : 3
Utah : 3.2
South Carolina: 5.1
Oklahoma : 3.9
Idaho: 1.7
Alaska: .7
Indiana: 6.7
Kansas: 2.9
Montana: 1
North Dakota : .7
Missouri : 6.1
Georgia : 10.6
Combined population of those states: 67.8 million
Total US population: 328.2 million
Population of states where Conservatives do not greatly outnumber liberals: 260.4
What's this data show us? Conservatives are overrepresented in our government because they have many low population states where they greatly outnumber liberals are are probably going to blindly vote Republican. These 19 states get a guaranteed 38 senators for Republicans out of 100 total.
What should the headline be instead of "Conservatives Greatly Outnumber Liberals in 19 U.S. States"?
How about "The Vast Majority of Americans Do Not Live In States Where Conservatives Greatly Outnumber Liberals".
If you look up attitudes, for specific policy positions this conversation might get more interesting but you'll likely find that Americans do not value the things Conservatives typically push.
I knew it would cause a defensive reaction. Any time you mention that the entire country is not, in fact, populated entirely by people like you, you tend to get one.
For all your hand waving and irrelevant tangents about slavery and state sizes, conservatives outnumber liberals nationally by about 9 points. The only "tortured analysis" is one that tries to paint over that fact.
That is true, though the same source says Democrats used to describe them as moderates more often than as liberal. From what you usually write on here, I've the feeling you would consider most of those moderates to be liberals, and the liberals to be far left.
The people who describe themselves as moderates are, in my opinion, swing voters. People who can go either way and are usually heavily contested for every election. My point in bringing up the map itself is to show the value in trying to appeal to, and alter, the GOP to fit working class ends rather than a rejection of it. Given the conservative tendency to reject mainstream candidates or build movements to pressure the GOP from the outside, like the Tea Partiers, I see this as not only realistic but easily achievable. A conservative party has a natural appeal to a majority of voters in most states, exactly the kind of thing you need to win elections.
I was making the point earlier, that the Democratic Party wins elections by appealing to centrists. The dream of a permanent progressive or democratic coalition is just that, a pipe dream. We have been talking a lot about the potential for bipartisanship, and that map makes it more or less clear that a one party state isn't coming up any time soon. Bipartisan consensus is the only way forward.
All the stuff people like yourself liked Trump for was surface-level bullshit he never cared about and didn't follow through with. He's the President of the United States. If he cared, especially in regards to troop levels, it would have gotten done. But that would have required a.) him asking about it more than once and b.) flash cards to explain the process to a 5-year old.
You constantly say slavery is "irrelevant" to these discussions when it has been pointed out on numerous occasions that when it comes to the Electoral College and the admission of new states to the union, it was not only relevant, but a CENTRAL component of what took place in both cases. Even if you disagree to the EXTENT slavery was the deciding factor (and in the later case it was literally the main cause of the Civil War), saying it had no bearing whatsoever is just completely historically inaccurate. The EC is quite literally why African-Americans were considered 3/5ths of a human being. The 3/5ths Compromise. The history of "working across the aisle" in the US.
You're someone who believes in the power of "culture". Imagine how long it takes to shake the perception that your people are only 60% human when that was a founding principle of the country. Because when you see nearly EVERY place Republicans are saying ballots were fraudulent, the answer to this question is clearly, "more than 150 years".
I think you are massively downplaying this. I'm sure he believed it was done, considering he was being lied to by his military advisers and assured that it was. Do you expect the military to lie to the Executive Branch about military matters? This is absolutely beyond the pale and raises the possibility of unsanctioned rogue military action. There is absolutely no excuse for this. "Trump is bad" doesn't suddenly allow the military to ignore the Commander in Chief and make decisions on its own.