Yep. Right wingers are back to complaining about everything and obstructing America. People think there must be something there because the GOP and right wing media coordinate their complaints and messaging.
People in Portland may be amazed to hear this but millions of people think your city's been on fire for months and it's a lawless hellhole of violence and stuff. My buddy said his parents texted him out of the blue yesterday and asked him if he was okay and he had no idea what they were talking about. He lives in Portland.
So it's back to obstruction and whining and lying, well they've always been lying, for the GOP.
I'm not sure what exactly needs to be compromised on to begin with.
Well, a Democrat has been in office for 72 hours. So it's just a rule that we have to all of a sudden be concerned about the deficit and spending again.
At this moment, Republicans are still TECHNICALLY in charge of the Senate because (get this) McConnell is filibustering the start of the process that transfers the power of the committee chairs. You can't make this stuff up.
A lot of the more awful details got a needed break because of the thread being given a soft pause (Was probably a good idea, TBH). Still, even now - shocking details about just how nefarious parts of the capitol riot were are being unearthed.
I asked a conservative friend of mine what kind of compromise Biden was supposed to make and she didn't know. It ended in a long conversation about the legitimacy of the election and a declaration that she would never believe Biden was the legitimate president. She already made up her mind.
This person is a friend of mine but there's no connection to be made here. No common ground. No agreement. And neither I nor she knows what could be done to bridge the gap.
I don't think Biden should try to appeal to the right. There's nothing he can say or do at this point. Compromise is pointless in 2021. I'm not confident that will change in the coming years.
The GOP doesn't even know what policies it wants. Its voters don't, either. Democrats sure as hell don't know.
I hope Biden just focuses on doing the grunt work of running the country instead of trying to heal ideological divides. That's not a job anyone knows how to do right now. Maybe on an individual scale for folks who want to listen, but not on the aggregate scale.
My girlfriend hates Biden (she's far enough to the left that she doesn't like "liberals" and has zero faith in the Democratic party to do anything to help anyone) and has finally found one thing he did that she liked: an executive order that, among other things, allowed workers to claim unemployment insurance even if they stopped going to work because COVID was endangering their safety. That should mean employers who have been running with unsafe conditions for their workers will have more incentive to keep things clean and socially distanced at the workplace, now that workers can more easily choose between their job and their safety.
Policy in the next couple years is going to be modest improvements and maybe some bigger stuff if Democrats in Congress stay unified. But ideology is going to stay toxic in this country, and the violence will come back when the wrong person fills the void that Trump left.
It's still super early. But my optimism has been burnt to ashes and I'm not sure I'm ready to rebuild it. The fire that destroyed it isn't over yet.
The Democrats have to get this through their skulls: no one is going to care about procedural arguments about Senate rules. The vast majority of the country doesn't know about them, doesn't care about them, or isn't smart enough to know any better. You are not going to be punished by voters for nuking the fucking filibuster. If you asked most people on the street, they'd probably tell you it's a type of hamburger. Republicans weren't punished for literally stealing a Supreme Court seat.
But those voters WILL blame you if nothing gets done, even if it's all the fault of Senate Republicans. And that is what they are counting on. They are cynically calculating that the average voter does not care or cannot process arguments about governmental procedure. And they are 100% correct.
There is a very high chance that no matter WHAT Democrats do in the next two years, they will lose at the polls. Running scared about what Republicans say about you on FOX News isn't going to make it any better. News flash: they're going to call you a socialist NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO!!!!
You can't negotiate with Mitch McConnell, and you cannot find common ground with a party who has members who are insisting on bringing guns onto the floor of the House and whose rank and file (overwhelmingly) don't even really believe in democracy anymore. They cannot keep playing this game like it's 1980 and Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill are having their weekly luncheon. Their are SOME signs they understand this, but they don't have alot of time to wake up. You have to fight these people with the courage of your convictions.
Meanwhile, you have the press SO desperate to find anything they can write about Biden that they've taken to trying to manufacture scandals over the cost of his stationary exercise bike and his fucking wristwatch, which tells me they have learned nothing about the role their absurd both-siderism played in Trump's ascent, which resulted in an all-out assault on our entire system of government. But, by all means, let's go back down the tan suit, dijon mustard on a hamburger road.
And this is why we should have nominated Bernie not Biden. Biden is trying to compromise with extremists who tried to overturn the election and still don't acknowledge that he won. Biden is continuously bending over backwards for these MAGA terrorists.
Bernie is a fighter, he wouldn't take these fake arguments and faux concern seriously. But it is what it is and we got Biden. He's done better so far than I thought he would. It's true the bar for the President was on the floor because Trump was so awful but Biden hadn't been bad so far.
I don't know what happened to the right, and can't really remember exactly when it happened, but at some point instead of the left being people with whom they disagree on policy, they became evil reprobates who are trying to destroy the United States for 'reasons'. I don't get it. When you view your enemies as the devil and your friends as the 'Enlightened Ones' you're bound to see the world as black and white. Losing elections is like Ragnarok to these folks. I'm not kidding...
I don't know what happened to the right, and can't really remember exactly when it happened, but at some point instead of the left being people with whom they disagree on policy, they became evil reprobates who are trying to destroy the United States for 'reasons'. I don't get it. When you view your enemies as the devil and your friends as the 'Enlightened Ones' you're bound to see the world as black and white. Losing elections is like Ragnarok to these folks. I'm not kidding...
Literally the only thing on the agenda right now is getting the vaccine into people's arms as fast as possible and a mass influx of of direct cash and stimulus into an ailing economy. None of which is just going to Democrats or those on the left, but literally everyone. Poor people living in a trailer in Appalachia would get the same check as someone living in a project in St. Louis. The 1.9 trillion COVID-19 package, like the Obama stimulus, has VERY little to do with ideological politics, and everyone to do with keeping things from collapsing completely.
No one is gonna turn down the money, and (aside from the real nutjobs) no one is gonna give up their spot for the vaccine when it comes up. So what the fuck is the problem here?? All it is is a massive adrenaline needle to the economy. Like @semiticgoddess said Republican voters and politicians don't even know what they do or don't want, other than an endless supply of liberal tears.
It's pretty clear we are in a crisis situation. The solution cannot be "do nothing". The Republicans have proven they have no interest in doing anything about the virus or the economy. So if they don't have any ideas, and they aren't even going to pretend to work on developing any, why listen to them at all?? It's like negotiating with a black hole.
They have no plan on healthcare, they have lost all credibility on the deficit and moral values, they don't want to (aside from a couple notable exception) give anyone anymore direct payments. They have flat-out ignored the pandemic for about six months. I mean, it's an honest question, what meaningful purpose is the Republican Party serving at this moment in time other than an outlet to express hatred of the left?? Big-tech censorship?? Yeah, that really rates highly when about 4200 people are getting loaded into freezers every 24 hours and the unemployment rate is back on the rise.
Tonight I saw yet ANOTHER (yes, they are still doing these) trek into Trump country on CNN, and the main takeaway from the people they talked to when asked how the new President might get their support was that "Joe Biden needs to be less divisive". Again, I go back to @semiticgoddess earlier post, what is the common ground here if THAT is their take after the first 72 hours of Biden being in office, when the entire narrative they are trying to frame is based on the idea of getting Republican support?? How can anyone who voted for Trump twice say with a straight-face they want less division in their politics?? The entire point of Trump was AMPLIFYING division in politics all the way to 11 and beyond.
And then you have the online left, who live in a world completely divorced from the actual one we live in, in which simply forcing a vote on Medicare for All will create a mass uprising (I've even seen many people suggest Biden can implement this with an Executive Order, which is just straight-up civic illiteracy) and ignoring the fact that the proposed stimulus bill would probably lift more people out of poverty than anything proposed since the New Deal. But since it isn't absolutely perfect and doesn't provide universal healthcare and erase all student loans, anyone who supports it is a corporate sellout and no different (or worse) than Trump.
So Biden is stuck between people who seem to believe in absolutely nothing whatsoever, and people who believe that anything short of 100% on their purity test is unacceptable. I wouldn't want to be navigating this bullshit, I can't really imagine why anyone would.
And this is why we should have nominated Bernie not Biden. Biden is trying to compromise with extremists who tried to overturn the election and still don't acknowledge that he won. Biden is continuously bending over backwards for these MAGA terrorists.
Bernie is a fighter, he wouldn't take these fake arguments and faux concern seriously. But it is what it is and we got Biden. He's done better so far than I thought he would. It's true the bar for the President was on the floor because Trump was so awful but Biden hadn't been bad so far.
Bernie would not have gotten 81 million votes. If he was on the ticket, you’d all have 4 more years of Trump, albeit without a Capitol Riot.
And this is why we should have nominated Bernie not Biden. Biden is trying to compromise with extremists who tried to overturn the election and still don't acknowledge that he won. Biden is continuously bending over backwards for these MAGA terrorists.
Bernie is a fighter, he wouldn't take these fake arguments and faux concern seriously. But it is what it is and we got Biden. He's done better so far than I thought he would. It's true the bar for the President was on the floor because Trump was so awful but Biden hadn't been bad so far.
Bernie would not have gotten 81 million votes. If he was on the ticket, you’d all have 4 more years of Trump, albeit without a Capitol Riot.
I like Bernie and voted for him in the primary. However, you're correct. He would have been pegged as the second coming of Vladimir Lenin and likely would have lost. By a lot...
But they pegged Biden as the second coming of Joseph Stalin anyway. You heard JJ about the interview with Trump supporters, they hate Biden.
Trump supporters do not hate Bernie because he can talk to them. Bernie had townhalls on Fox News and the crowd was behind him. The same people that rallied behind Trump because he was anti-establishment would listen to Bernie. Americans need healthcare. These Fox News conspiracy types are not open to Biden at all. They would at least listen to Bernie. Liberal voters who hate Trump would not vote for Trump even if the alternative was Bernie.
At any rate, we got Biden. Republicans have shown they will do nothing but obstruct everything. If we don't overcome that Biden will get nothing done and America definitely has a lot of problems that need to be addressed. But even if he does overcome GOP obstruction, Biden doesn't seem willing to do what it takes to fix America.
But they pegged Biden as the second coming of Joseph Stalin anyway. You heard JJ about the interview with Trump supporters, they hate Biden.
Trump supporters do not hate Bernie because he can talk to them. Bernie had townhalls on Fox News and the crowd was behind him. The same people that rallied behind Trump because he was anti-establishment would listen to Bernie. Americans need healthcare. These Fox News conspiracy types are not open to Biden at all. They would at least listen to Bernie. Liberal voters who hate Trump would not vote for Trump even if the alternative was Bernie.
At any rate, we got Biden. Republicans have shown they will do nothing but obstruct everything. If we don't overcome that Biden will get nothing done and America definitely has a lot of problems that need to be addressed. But even if he does overcome GOP obstruction, Biden doesn't seem willing to do what it takes to fix America.
They did, but no one believed them.
If Sanders was chosen, there would a good chunk of people who flocked to Biden who would have either stayed home, voted third party (Green), or swallowed hard and pulled the lever for Trump again because they would have believed the socialism talk and would have compounded the problem by suggesting that, due to the pandemic, the economy would not be able to handle all the social policies being put forward at this time and only a person with a good business sense would be able to guide the country through this. People would have gobbled that message up.
And give me a break. Biden’s been in office less than a week and he’s already being cast aside as a failure by both the left and right. Give him a chance to get policy out before judging him.
I had to reevaluate Bernie's chances of a victory in hindsight after seeing Trump increase his vote total from 2016 by running the socialist playbook against Joe Biden, and then imagining what the impact would have been if someone on the other side of him was self-describing himself that way. Doesn't seem possible to me he could have pulled it off given what we know now.
Bernie does not have a bad consolation prize. He is going to be Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, which gives him enormous leverage to push the White House to the left, which in Bernie's case, has nothing to do with cultural issues, and everything to do with providing relief to poor and working families, which is basically his life's work. He is probably exactly where he needs to be.
But they pegged Biden as the second coming of Joseph Stalin anyway. You heard JJ about the interview with Trump supporters, they hate Biden.
Trump supporters do not hate Bernie because he can talk to them. Bernie had townhalls on Fox News and the crowd was behind him. The same people that rallied behind Trump because he was anti-establishment would listen to Bernie. Americans need healthcare. These Fox News conspiracy types are not open to Biden at all. They would at least listen to Bernie. Liberal voters who hate Trump would not vote for Trump even if the alternative was Bernie.
At any rate, we got Biden. Republicans have shown they will do nothing but obstruct everything. If we don't overcome that Biden will get nothing done and America definitely has a lot of problems that need to be addressed. But even if he does overcome GOP obstruction, Biden doesn't seem willing to do what it takes to fix America.
They did, but no one believed them.
If Sanders was chosen, there would a good chunk of people who flocked to Biden who would have either stayed home, voted third party (Green), or swallowed hard and pulled the lever for Trump again because they would have believed the socialism talk and would have compounded the problem by suggesting that, due to the pandemic, the economy would not be able to handle all the social policies being put forward at this time and only a person with a good business sense would be able to guide the country through this. People would have gobbled that message up.
And give me a break. Biden’s been in office less than a week and he’s already being cast aside as a failure by both the left and right. Give him a chance to get policy out before judging him.
While I maintain that Sanders would have defeated Trump in 2016, and think he would have outperformed HRC in 2020, given the distribution of votes he probably isn't flipping the states needed to win the electoral college. He certainly isn't flipping either GA or AZ this time around. Best case scenario is that an election tx the two hinges on PA and goes to the courts, causing anxiety for all involved.
As for Biden, his executive orders have been a bit more progressive in general than I had expected. I remain skeptical about what he can and will do, but those actions ensure that I'm not willing to dismiss him outright.
As for Biden, his executive orders have been a bit more progressive in general than I had expected. I remain skeptical about what he can and will do, but those actions ensure that I'm not willing to dismiss him outright.
I'm not accusing you of this, but a *lot* of people tried pretty hard to fool themselves into believing Biden was a center-right conservative from the 80s or something. That was never going to be the case in this administration. He isnt the lion of progressivism that Sanders or Warren is, but he is and has been on the border between center left and just left this entire time. What's more, I'd say that the progressive wing of the party has rather successfully lobbied for him to move a bit to the left over the past year.
He's putting a priority on racial justice and environmental concerns pretty early in his administration. A center-right politician would be trying to deregulate and cut taxes. Biden paused the rampant deregulation of Trump and is probably hoping to save reconciliation to kill the corporate tax cuts as well as any part of the tax cuts to the rich.
The only other thing I'll say is: Biden outperformed most progressive house candidates in their own districts. Maybe Sanders would have won a national election against Trump in 2020, but even if he did (and I dont think he would have, to be honest), he would have lost more house seats and more senate seats. There's virtually no chance that the Democrats would be sitting on a 50/50 senate right now, and the House would have been much closer than it currently is.
I'm not accusing you of this, but a *lot* of people tried pretty hard to fool themselves into believing Biden was a center-right conservative from the 80s or something. That was never going to be the case in this administration. He isnt the lion of progressivism that Sanders or Warren is, but he is and has been on the border between center left and just left this entire time. What's more, I'd say that the progressive wing of the party has rather successfully lobbied for him to move a bit to the left over the past year.
He's putting a priority on racial justice and environmental concerns pretty early in his administration. A center-right politician would be trying to deregulate and cut taxes. Biden paused the rampant deregulation of Trump and is probably hoping to save reconciliation to kill the corporate tax cuts as well as any part of the tax cuts to the rich.
The only other thing I'll say is: Biden outperformed most progressive house candidates in their own districts. Maybe Sanders would have won a national election against Trump in 2020, but even if he did (and I dont think he would have, to be honest), he would have lost more house seats and more senate seats. There's virtually no chance that the Democrats would be sitting on a 50/50 senate right now, and the House would have been much closer than it currently is.
There's a two-fold point here. One is that Biden has never been the Manchin-esque centrist he was caricatured as during the primary. People seem to erase a substantial part of the Democratic party, simply because those folks almost never run well in a presidential primary. But Tester, Manchin, numerous governors and members of the House are well to the right of Biden. Have been for a long time too -- Biden originally ran opposed to the Vietnam War in his first campaign.
Secondly, some folks overstate how important the man in office is and understate how important the party, and I'd argue the country are. Both the Democratic Party and the median US voter are well to the left of even where they were in 2008, imo. This means that a lot of reform from increased government-paid healthcare, increased government spending as stimulus/relief, more serious tackling of climate change, and racial disparities are all viable in a way that they simply were not in 2009-2010. Even Joe Manchin and John Tester are more progressive than Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson was.
I had to reevaluate Bernie's chances of a victory in hindsight after seeing Trump increase his vote total from 2016 by running the socialist playbook against Joe Biden, and then imagining what the impact would have been if someone on the other side of him was self-describing himself that way. Doesn't seem possible to me he could have pulled it off given what we know now.
Bernie does not have a bad consolation prize. He is going to be Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, which gives him enormous leverage to push the White House to the left, which in Bernie's case, has nothing to do with cultural issues, and everything to do with providing relief to poor and working families, which is basically his life's work. He is probably exactly where he needs to be.
Unless you mean reevaluate and expect them to win I don't think you've changed your position. I don't recall you thinking he could win before. At any rate, what we got is Biden. But we coulda had a bad bitch.
Apparently even the vaccine probably won't bring us an early reopening. The sheer scale of the virus spread could still kill a lot of people if we don't keep social distancing measures in place for months into the future. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/24/us/covid-vaccine-rollout.html
Biden has warned that the death toll could still reach 600,000 even with the vaccine to help us. I had hoped things could get back to normal in a couple months but the ability to safely reopen is constrained by the ability to distribute the vaccine, and we didn't inherit a distribution plan from the old administration. We might be working with social distancing until July.
Apparently even the vaccine probably won't bring us an early reopening. The sheer scale of the virus spread could still kill a lot of people if we don't keep social distancing measures in place for months into the future. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/24/us/covid-vaccine-rollout.html
Biden has warned that the death toll could still reach 600,000 even with the vaccine to help us. I had hoped things could get back to normal in a couple months but the ability to safely reopen is constrained by the ability to distribute the vaccine, and we didn't inherit a distribution plan from the old administration. We might be working with social distancing until July.
The sheer amount of lies, magical thinking, and abdication of their most basic duty of the last Administration since last January is simply staggering. There is obviously no criminal statute that can be brought to bear against them for their actions in regards to the pandemic, but they are far worse than almost any criminals I can imagine. They are essentially guilty of democide.
What I say: I think the United States would better represent the citizenry by being broken up into a few major territories, since hostility and polarization destroy functionality at the federal level, and largely doesn't exist, in many cases, at the local level where ideology is more uniform even across party lines. Everyone would be more satisfied with their governments since they would have greater control over them and be better represented by them. Simply expanding greatly upon states rights would have largely the same function.
What it is interpreted as: Republicans don't believe in Democracy.
Why do I even bother. Even RPGCodex is capable of more nuance about people they hate.
As an aside, I am increasingly reluctant to describe the U.S political system as a "democracy". Democracy, for it to have any value or mean anything, requires that the citizenry at large be able to make political choices, be able to freely express themselves to the public, etc. I would say were are very nearly at the point where these choices are manipulated or outright prevented to such an extent that freedom of political choice can't be said to functionally exist.
I mean, forget social media, what happens when banks make it so you can't fundraise (here and here), what happens when the internet monopolies Google and Apple prevent any platform from giving you access to organize as was already mentioned- as well as make any competition impossible to the social giants who demand only one view?
And on the other side, without even taking power Bernie Sanders has also been a victim of institutional coordination against him. I will remind everyone here that Wikileaks proved years ago that the primary debates were rigged against him, he was blocked from access to the database of potential democratic voters during election time, made the subject of unproven and assumed to be false allegations from his own party, something out of the standard Democrat character attack playbook, and DNC communications were intercepted where they were considering how to best order the media (because of course they order the media around) to spin anti-Sanders narratives.
"The emails include several stinging denunciations of Sanders and his organization before and after the DNC briefly shut off his campaign’s access to the party’s key list of likely Democratic voters.
The DNC temporarily curtailed Sanders’ access to the list in December 2015, after the party accused his campaign of illegally tapping into confidential voter information compiled by the Clinton campaign. The Sanders campaign briefly sued the DNC but the parties reached an accord, and the suit was dropped in April."
"In one of the emails, dated May 21, Mark Paustenbach, a committee communications official, wrote to a colleague about the possibility of urging reporters to write that Mr. Sanders’s campaign was “a mess” after a glitch on the committee’s servers gave it access to Clinton voter data.
In another email exchange, Mr. Miranda asked Ms. Wasserman Schultz whether they should call CNN to complain about a segment the network aired in which Mr. Sanders said he would oust the chairwoman if he were elected.
In an email exchange that month, another committee official wrote to both Mr. Paustenbach and Amy Dacey, the committee’s chief executive, to suggest finding a way to bring attention to the religious beliefs of an unnamed person, apparently Mr. Sanders.
I'm not sure what you could call a system that has the outward organs of a democracy but has powerful internal forces that manipulate people and institutions from behind the scenes to obtain the result that they want, but "democracy" seems like a stretch. Most people aren't Donald Trump, who have millions of dollars and a long-running and highly recognized brand name to be able to help you to reach the public. Most potential politicians will require a functional civil society to earn support and political influence. We simply do not have that, nor is there seemingly anyone willing to build it.
@WarChiefZeke I think you could just as easily see the glass half full. For example, I didn't say that Republicans don't believe in democracy, nor did several other participants in this conversation say that. Nor do I nor several other people here hate you. As a matter of fact, when I said that there were photos of armed protesters during the storming of the capitol, and you suggested that there weren't, I did a search and told you that I was mistaken and you were correct regarding that issue. I don't know how much more proof you need that many of us are arguing in good faith here.
The argument of Josh Hawley moments before the attempted insurrection (and after, for that matter) was LITERALLY that states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin didn't have the right to administer their elections as they saw fit based solely on him not being happy with the outcome. The entire argument was that certain states (but, miraculously, only swing-states) should have ALL their votes thrown out.
I mean, I don't really want to hear about "state's rights" as a term much anyway, given it's historical context in the United States, but I ESPECIALLY don't want to hear about them now. It's a phrase that gets deployed when convenient, and completely ignored when not convenient. No one believes in it. It's as meaningless as saying you believe in "freedom". It's become that amorphous.
@WarChiefZeke I think you could just as easily see the glass half full. For example, I didn't say that Republicans don't believe in democracy, nor did several other participants in this conversation say that. Nor do I nor several other people here hate you. As a matter of fact, when I said that there were photos of armed protesters during the storming of the capitol, and you suggested that there weren't, I did a search and told you that I was mistaken and you were correct regarding that issue. I don't know how much more proof you need that many of us are arguing in good faith here.
I mean, I could pull a quote right now that was made about the people who stormed the capitol that was made before the thread went on hiatus that was so spectacularly wrong in hindsight it almost defies belief, but I'm not going to do so because I want the thread to still exist. I'm going go watch football before I ruin it for everyone.
What I say: I think the United States would better represent the citizenry by being broken up into a few major territories, since hostility and polarization destroy functionality at the federal level, and largely doesn't exist, in many cases, at the local level where ideology is more uniform even across party lines. Everyone would be more satisfied with their governments since they would have greater control over them and be better represented by them. Simply expanding greatly upon states rights would have largely the same function.
What it is interpreted as: Republicans don't believe in Democracy.
Why do I even bother. Even RPGCodex is capable of more nuance about people they hate.
Yes and no. There are federal issues that can't be determined at just a state level, such as military and foreign issues. Sure trade can be done at the State level, but the country loses a lot of leverage by doing it this way, and only in unique and niche markets does it actually thrive.
Treasury is also something that needs to be handled federally or you'll see a worse monopoly of California bullying smaller states into doing what they want just to get revenue to supply basic needs like medical care, water and electricity.
States and municipalities still have a greater influence in how their citizens live their lives and I can not think of a federal issue that individual states should actually be in control of. Please, share if you personally know of one. This is perhaps where confusion happens, such as police reform. Police reform can't happen at the federal level, even though it's blights are happening at a national scale and becomes a national protest. Same with COVID. The federal government can only provide the funding and the tools (such as the actual vaccine) to the states to administer to their population. Done properly, it can be a smooth running operation, done poorly, it can have states competing against each other for the same resources.
And States rights is what some elected republicans were fighting against during the last election. We saw Texas politicians attempting to throw out the Electoral Votes of PA because they personally didn't agree with them, or the state level court rulings regarding them. So it is really hard to tell, as an outsider looking in, what it is that the Republican Party actually wants these days besides power that they have no clue on how to wield.
I mean, I could pull a quote right now that was made about the people who stormed the capitol that was made before the thread went on hiatus that was so spectacularly wrong in hindsight it almost defies belief, but I'm not going to do so because I want the thread to still exist. I'm going go watch football before I ruin it for everyone.
Ok, but he was right that there weren't photos of armed protesters. And I had no problem in telling him that he was right and I was wrong. That's what arguing in good faith is all about. Just saying.
There weren't photos at the time, but we later learned that the local police found weapons on some of the attackers; some of the criminal charges were weapons-related charges. We didn't see photo proof that day, but they were in fact armed. That's why I flipped back to saying the attackers brought weapons to the Capitol.
There weren't photos at the time, but we later learned that the local police found weapons on some of the attackers; some of the criminal charges were weapons-related charges. We didn't see photo proof that day, but they were in fact armed. That's why I flipped back to saying the attackers brought weapons to the Capitol.
The fact some of them may or may not have had guns doesn't really matter a hell of lot, since they apparently just decided to pick up a fire extinguisher and bash someone's head in. Like I said before, was MOST of that crowd interested in engaging in physical violence?? Probably not, but their presence in the same crowd basically amounted to running a screen for those that did. In a mob, the size of the crowd itself IS the weapon. And the defense of some of the people who have now been charged, such as with a straight-face claiming they found the zip-tie handcuffs just lying on the floor, is comical. There was significant portion of that crowd that was fully intent on carrying out kidnapping, assassination, or both, and their targets bridge the ideological spectrum from Pence to AOC. Those are just the facts. I suppose it's inevitable we're eventually going to pretend it never happened.
What I say: I think the United States would better represent the citizenry by being broken up into a few major territories, since hostility and polarization destroy functionality at the federal level, and largely doesn't exist, in many cases, at the local level where ideology is more uniform even across party lines. Everyone would be more satisfied with their governments since they would have greater control over them and be better represented by them. Simply expanding greatly upon states rights would have largely the same function.
What it is interpreted as: Republicans don't believe in Democracy.
Why do I even bother. Even RPGCodex is capable of more nuance about people they hate.
As I've said before on here, this is a mistake. In part driven by the electoral college's winnter-take-all system in most states. Almost every state in the country falls within a 60-40 divide. Meaning the divide is not actually that large overall. But the split between how cities and rural areas vote can easily climb to 80-20. Majorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, for just two recent examples are from congressional districts in now blue states -- Georgia and Colorado.
I don't see how you'd break apart something like Georgia, for just one example, between Atlanta on the one hand and its surrounding areas on the other. But that's where the divide actually exists.
I think the charge of not believing in democracy actually does have some relevance here. When Democrats lose federal elections they're castigated for being too far left or for nominating a lousy candidate. And the party did do a lot of introspection, did nominate a somewhat moderate candidate with broad appeal. Elections aren't forever. And a party's platform can change.
Rather than thinking there is no solution, conservatives need to think about voters they have failed to appeal to, in some cases for generations, and how they can win them over. Conservatives have lost voters making less than the median income in the last two presidential elections (and probably more if I check).
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People in Portland may be amazed to hear this but millions of people think your city's been on fire for months and it's a lawless hellhole of violence and stuff. My buddy said his parents texted him out of the blue yesterday and asked him if he was okay and he had no idea what they were talking about. He lives in Portland.
So it's back to obstruction and whining and lying, well they've always been lying, for the GOP.
Well, a Democrat has been in office for 72 hours. So it's just a rule that we have to all of a sudden be concerned about the deficit and spending again.
At this moment, Republicans are still TECHNICALLY in charge of the Senate because (get this) McConnell is filibustering the start of the process that transfers the power of the committee chairs. You can't make this stuff up.
For example:
It's wild. Equally wild is that the GOP seems keen (understandably, I guess? Even if awful) to put it past them as fast as possible.
This person is a friend of mine but there's no connection to be made here. No common ground. No agreement. And neither I nor she knows what could be done to bridge the gap.
I don't think Biden should try to appeal to the right. There's nothing he can say or do at this point. Compromise is pointless in 2021. I'm not confident that will change in the coming years.
The GOP doesn't even know what policies it wants. Its voters don't, either. Democrats sure as hell don't know.
I hope Biden just focuses on doing the grunt work of running the country instead of trying to heal ideological divides. That's not a job anyone knows how to do right now. Maybe on an individual scale for folks who want to listen, but not on the aggregate scale.
My girlfriend hates Biden (she's far enough to the left that she doesn't like "liberals" and has zero faith in the Democratic party to do anything to help anyone) and has finally found one thing he did that she liked: an executive order that, among other things, allowed workers to claim unemployment insurance even if they stopped going to work because COVID was endangering their safety. That should mean employers who have been running with unsafe conditions for their workers will have more incentive to keep things clean and socially distanced at the workplace, now that workers can more easily choose between their job and their safety.
Policy in the next couple years is going to be modest improvements and maybe some bigger stuff if Democrats in Congress stay unified. But ideology is going to stay toxic in this country, and the violence will come back when the wrong person fills the void that Trump left.
It's still super early. But my optimism has been burnt to ashes and I'm not sure I'm ready to rebuild it. The fire that destroyed it isn't over yet.
But those voters WILL blame you if nothing gets done, even if it's all the fault of Senate Republicans. And that is what they are counting on. They are cynically calculating that the average voter does not care or cannot process arguments about governmental procedure. And they are 100% correct.
There is a very high chance that no matter WHAT Democrats do in the next two years, they will lose at the polls. Running scared about what Republicans say about you on FOX News isn't going to make it any better. News flash: they're going to call you a socialist NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO!!!!
You can't negotiate with Mitch McConnell, and you cannot find common ground with a party who has members who are insisting on bringing guns onto the floor of the House and whose rank and file (overwhelmingly) don't even really believe in democracy anymore. They cannot keep playing this game like it's 1980 and Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill are having their weekly luncheon. Their are SOME signs they understand this, but they don't have alot of time to wake up. You have to fight these people with the courage of your convictions.
Meanwhile, you have the press SO desperate to find anything they can write about Biden that they've taken to trying to manufacture scandals over the cost of his stationary exercise bike and his fucking wristwatch, which tells me they have learned nothing about the role their absurd both-siderism played in Trump's ascent, which resulted in an all-out assault on our entire system of government. But, by all means, let's go back down the tan suit, dijon mustard on a hamburger road.
Bernie is a fighter, he wouldn't take these fake arguments and faux concern seriously. But it is what it is and we got Biden. He's done better so far than I thought he would. It's true the bar for the President was on the floor because Trump was so awful but Biden hadn't been bad so far.
Literally the only thing on the agenda right now is getting the vaccine into people's arms as fast as possible and a mass influx of of direct cash and stimulus into an ailing economy. None of which is just going to Democrats or those on the left, but literally everyone. Poor people living in a trailer in Appalachia would get the same check as someone living in a project in St. Louis. The 1.9 trillion COVID-19 package, like the Obama stimulus, has VERY little to do with ideological politics, and everyone to do with keeping things from collapsing completely.
No one is gonna turn down the money, and (aside from the real nutjobs) no one is gonna give up their spot for the vaccine when it comes up. So what the fuck is the problem here?? All it is is a massive adrenaline needle to the economy. Like @semiticgoddess said Republican voters and politicians don't even know what they do or don't want, other than an endless supply of liberal tears.
It's pretty clear we are in a crisis situation. The solution cannot be "do nothing". The Republicans have proven they have no interest in doing anything about the virus or the economy. So if they don't have any ideas, and they aren't even going to pretend to work on developing any, why listen to them at all?? It's like negotiating with a black hole.
They have no plan on healthcare, they have lost all credibility on the deficit and moral values, they don't want to (aside from a couple notable exception) give anyone anymore direct payments. They have flat-out ignored the pandemic for about six months. I mean, it's an honest question, what meaningful purpose is the Republican Party serving at this moment in time other than an outlet to express hatred of the left?? Big-tech censorship?? Yeah, that really rates highly when about 4200 people are getting loaded into freezers every 24 hours and the unemployment rate is back on the rise.
Tonight I saw yet ANOTHER (yes, they are still doing these) trek into Trump country on CNN, and the main takeaway from the people they talked to when asked how the new President might get their support was that "Joe Biden needs to be less divisive". Again, I go back to @semiticgoddess earlier post, what is the common ground here if THAT is their take after the first 72 hours of Biden being in office, when the entire narrative they are trying to frame is based on the idea of getting Republican support?? How can anyone who voted for Trump twice say with a straight-face they want less division in their politics?? The entire point of Trump was AMPLIFYING division in politics all the way to 11 and beyond.
And then you have the online left, who live in a world completely divorced from the actual one we live in, in which simply forcing a vote on Medicare for All will create a mass uprising (I've even seen many people suggest Biden can implement this with an Executive Order, which is just straight-up civic illiteracy) and ignoring the fact that the proposed stimulus bill would probably lift more people out of poverty than anything proposed since the New Deal. But since it isn't absolutely perfect and doesn't provide universal healthcare and erase all student loans, anyone who supports it is a corporate sellout and no different (or worse) than Trump.
So Biden is stuck between people who seem to believe in absolutely nothing whatsoever, and people who believe that anything short of 100% on their purity test is unacceptable. I wouldn't want to be navigating this bullshit, I can't really imagine why anyone would.
Bernie would not have gotten 81 million votes. If he was on the ticket, you’d all have 4 more years of Trump, albeit without a Capitol Riot.
I like Bernie and voted for him in the primary. However, you're correct. He would have been pegged as the second coming of Vladimir Lenin and likely would have lost. By a lot...
Trump supporters do not hate Bernie because he can talk to them. Bernie had townhalls on Fox News and the crowd was behind him. The same people that rallied behind Trump because he was anti-establishment would listen to Bernie. Americans need healthcare. These Fox News conspiracy types are not open to Biden at all. They would at least listen to Bernie. Liberal voters who hate Trump would not vote for Trump even if the alternative was Bernie.
At any rate, we got Biden. Republicans have shown they will do nothing but obstruct everything. If we don't overcome that Biden will get nothing done and America definitely has a lot of problems that need to be addressed. But even if he does overcome GOP obstruction, Biden doesn't seem willing to do what it takes to fix America.
They did, but no one believed them.
If Sanders was chosen, there would a good chunk of people who flocked to Biden who would have either stayed home, voted third party (Green), or swallowed hard and pulled the lever for Trump again because they would have believed the socialism talk and would have compounded the problem by suggesting that, due to the pandemic, the economy would not be able to handle all the social policies being put forward at this time and only a person with a good business sense would be able to guide the country through this. People would have gobbled that message up.
And give me a break. Biden’s been in office less than a week and he’s already being cast aside as a failure by both the left and right. Give him a chance to get policy out before judging him.
Bernie does not have a bad consolation prize. He is going to be Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, which gives him enormous leverage to push the White House to the left, which in Bernie's case, has nothing to do with cultural issues, and everything to do with providing relief to poor and working families, which is basically his life's work. He is probably exactly where he needs to be.
While I maintain that Sanders would have defeated Trump in 2016, and think he would have outperformed HRC in 2020, given the distribution of votes he probably isn't flipping the states needed to win the electoral college. He certainly isn't flipping either GA or AZ this time around. Best case scenario is that an election tx the two hinges on PA and goes to the courts, causing anxiety for all involved.
As for Biden, his executive orders have been a bit more progressive in general than I had expected. I remain skeptical about what he can and will do, but those actions ensure that I'm not willing to dismiss him outright.
I'm not accusing you of this, but a *lot* of people tried pretty hard to fool themselves into believing Biden was a center-right conservative from the 80s or something. That was never going to be the case in this administration. He isnt the lion of progressivism that Sanders or Warren is, but he is and has been on the border between center left and just left this entire time. What's more, I'd say that the progressive wing of the party has rather successfully lobbied for him to move a bit to the left over the past year.
He's putting a priority on racial justice and environmental concerns pretty early in his administration. A center-right politician would be trying to deregulate and cut taxes. Biden paused the rampant deregulation of Trump and is probably hoping to save reconciliation to kill the corporate tax cuts as well as any part of the tax cuts to the rich.
The only other thing I'll say is: Biden outperformed most progressive house candidates in their own districts. Maybe Sanders would have won a national election against Trump in 2020, but even if he did (and I dont think he would have, to be honest), he would have lost more house seats and more senate seats. There's virtually no chance that the Democrats would be sitting on a 50/50 senate right now, and the House would have been much closer than it currently is.
There's a two-fold point here. One is that Biden has never been the Manchin-esque centrist he was caricatured as during the primary. People seem to erase a substantial part of the Democratic party, simply because those folks almost never run well in a presidential primary. But Tester, Manchin, numerous governors and members of the House are well to the right of Biden. Have been for a long time too -- Biden originally ran opposed to the Vietnam War in his first campaign.
Secondly, some folks overstate how important the man in office is and understate how important the party, and I'd argue the country are. Both the Democratic Party and the median US voter are well to the left of even where they were in 2008, imo. This means that a lot of reform from increased government-paid healthcare, increased government spending as stimulus/relief, more serious tackling of climate change, and racial disparities are all viable in a way that they simply were not in 2009-2010. Even Joe Manchin and John Tester are more progressive than Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson was.
Unless you mean reevaluate and expect them to win I don't think you've changed your position. I don't recall you thinking he could win before. At any rate, what we got is Biden. But we coulda had a bad bitch.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/24/us/covid-vaccine-rollout.html
Biden has warned that the death toll could still reach 600,000 even with the vaccine to help us. I had hoped things could get back to normal in a couple months but the ability to safely reopen is constrained by the ability to distribute the vaccine, and we didn't inherit a distribution plan from the old administration. We might be working with social distancing until July.
The sheer amount of lies, magical thinking, and abdication of their most basic duty of the last Administration since last January is simply staggering. There is obviously no criminal statute that can be brought to bear against them for their actions in regards to the pandemic, but they are far worse than almost any criminals I can imagine. They are essentially guilty of democide.
What I say: I think the United States would better represent the citizenry by being broken up into a few major territories, since hostility and polarization destroy functionality at the federal level, and largely doesn't exist, in many cases, at the local level where ideology is more uniform even across party lines. Everyone would be more satisfied with their governments since they would have greater control over them and be better represented by them. Simply expanding greatly upon states rights would have largely the same function.
What it is interpreted as: Republicans don't believe in Democracy.
Why do I even bother. Even RPGCodex is capable of more nuance about people they hate.
I mean, forget social media, what happens when banks make it so you can't fundraise (here and here), what happens when the internet monopolies Google and Apple prevent any platform from giving you access to organize as was already mentioned- as well as make any competition impossible to the social giants who demand only one view?
And on the other side, without even taking power Bernie Sanders has also been a victim of institutional coordination against him. I will remind everyone here that Wikileaks proved years ago that the primary debates were rigged against him, he was blocked from access to the database of potential democratic voters during election time, made the subject of unproven and assumed to be false allegations from his own party, something out of the standard Democrat character attack playbook, and DNC communications were intercepted where they were considering how to best order the media (because of course they order the media around) to spin anti-Sanders narratives.
The DNC temporarily curtailed Sanders’ access to the list in December 2015, after the party accused his campaign of illegally tapping into confidential voter information compiled by the Clinton campaign. The Sanders campaign briefly sued the DNC but the parties reached an accord, and the suit was dropped in April."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/23/dnc-emails-wikileaks-hillary-bernie-sanders
"In one of the emails, dated May 21, Mark Paustenbach, a committee communications official, wrote to a colleague about the possibility of urging reporters to write that Mr. Sanders’s campaign was “a mess” after a glitch on the committee’s servers gave it access to Clinton voter data.
In another email exchange, Mr. Miranda asked Ms. Wasserman Schultz whether they should call CNN to complain about a segment the network aired in which Mr. Sanders said he would oust the chairwoman if he were elected.
In an email exchange that month, another committee official wrote to both Mr. Paustenbach and Amy Dacey, the committee’s chief executive, to suggest finding a way to bring attention to the religious beliefs of an unnamed person, apparently Mr. Sanders.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sanders-clinton.html
I'm not sure what you could call a system that has the outward organs of a democracy but has powerful internal forces that manipulate people and institutions from behind the scenes to obtain the result that they want, but "democracy" seems like a stretch. Most people aren't Donald Trump, who have millions of dollars and a long-running and highly recognized brand name to be able to help you to reach the public. Most potential politicians will require a functional civil society to earn support and political influence. We simply do not have that, nor is there seemingly anyone willing to build it.
I mean, I don't really want to hear about "state's rights" as a term much anyway, given it's historical context in the United States, but I ESPECIALLY don't want to hear about them now. It's a phrase that gets deployed when convenient, and completely ignored when not convenient. No one believes in it. It's as meaningless as saying you believe in "freedom". It's become that amorphous.
I mean, I could pull a quote right now that was made about the people who stormed the capitol that was made before the thread went on hiatus that was so spectacularly wrong in hindsight it almost defies belief, but I'm not going to do so because I want the thread to still exist. I'm going go watch football before I ruin it for everyone.
Yes and no. There are federal issues that can't be determined at just a state level, such as military and foreign issues. Sure trade can be done at the State level, but the country loses a lot of leverage by doing it this way, and only in unique and niche markets does it actually thrive.
Treasury is also something that needs to be handled federally or you'll see a worse monopoly of California bullying smaller states into doing what they want just to get revenue to supply basic needs like medical care, water and electricity.
States and municipalities still have a greater influence in how their citizens live their lives and I can not think of a federal issue that individual states should actually be in control of. Please, share if you personally know of one. This is perhaps where confusion happens, such as police reform. Police reform can't happen at the federal level, even though it's blights are happening at a national scale and becomes a national protest. Same with COVID. The federal government can only provide the funding and the tools (such as the actual vaccine) to the states to administer to their population. Done properly, it can be a smooth running operation, done poorly, it can have states competing against each other for the same resources.
And States rights is what some elected republicans were fighting against during the last election. We saw Texas politicians attempting to throw out the Electoral Votes of PA because they personally didn't agree with them, or the state level court rulings regarding them. So it is really hard to tell, as an outsider looking in, what it is that the Republican Party actually wants these days besides power that they have no clue on how to wield.
Ok, but he was right that there weren't photos of armed protesters. And I had no problem in telling him that he was right and I was wrong. That's what arguing in good faith is all about. Just saying.
The fact some of them may or may not have had guns doesn't really matter a hell of lot, since they apparently just decided to pick up a fire extinguisher and bash someone's head in. Like I said before, was MOST of that crowd interested in engaging in physical violence?? Probably not, but their presence in the same crowd basically amounted to running a screen for those that did. In a mob, the size of the crowd itself IS the weapon. And the defense of some of the people who have now been charged, such as with a straight-face claiming they found the zip-tie handcuffs just lying on the floor, is comical. There was significant portion of that crowd that was fully intent on carrying out kidnapping, assassination, or both, and their targets bridge the ideological spectrum from Pence to AOC. Those are just the facts. I suppose it's inevitable we're eventually going to pretend it never happened.
As I've said before on here, this is a mistake. In part driven by the electoral college's winnter-take-all system in most states. Almost every state in the country falls within a 60-40 divide. Meaning the divide is not actually that large overall. But the split between how cities and rural areas vote can easily climb to 80-20. Majorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, for just two recent examples are from congressional districts in now blue states -- Georgia and Colorado.
I don't see how you'd break apart something like Georgia, for just one example, between Atlanta on the one hand and its surrounding areas on the other. But that's where the divide actually exists.
I think the charge of not believing in democracy actually does have some relevance here. When Democrats lose federal elections they're castigated for being too far left or for nominating a lousy candidate. And the party did do a lot of introspection, did nominate a somewhat moderate candidate with broad appeal. Elections aren't forever. And a party's platform can change.
Rather than thinking there is no solution, conservatives need to think about voters they have failed to appeal to, in some cases for generations, and how they can win them over. Conservatives have lost voters making less than the median income in the last two presidential elections (and probably more if I check).