Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Starlord]

58 minutes ago, Hermit said:

Anyone see CNN's Townhall for the 2020 Democratic hopefuls? I only caught a part of it.

 

I only caught snippets of it.  Sanders was still kooky/crazy and - WOW - old.  Harris was bland and boring.  Mayor Pete was brilliant.

[Hermit]

16 hours ago, Starlord said:

 

I only caught snippets of it.  Sanders was still kooky/crazy and - WOW - old.  Harris was bland and boring.  Mayor Pete was brilliant.

 

Well, I disagree on Sanders, but I will admit, Mayor Pete impressed. Honestly, I was impressed how he stands by his faith.

I would like to see more detailed plans on the hows and such but can understand why he doesn't want to get bogged down in it too soon.

If anything, Mayor Pete might be too smart for the job of President *Half joking*

[Starlord]

Yeah, Sanders is just too left for me and I will find it hard to vote for 80 year old men (also Biden).  Pete will have to start cementing policy soon or lose his momentum as right now he's just painting himself as the moral anti-Trump/Pence.

[Hermit]

23 minutes ago, Starlord said:

Yeah, Sanders is just too left for me and I will find it hard to vote for 80 year old men (also Biden).  Pete will have to start cementing policy soon or lose his momentum as right now he's just painting himself as the moral anti-Trump/Pence.

 

Well, I want a president who is going to rein in big corporations, make them pay taxes, and work to strip them of their 'personhood' ... I'm not against mom and pop stores, in fact, I think reining in the big bullies will help small to medium business. Warren and Sanders have taken point on that, so they  have my support. If Mayor Pete begins to outline on what HE will do to remove the threat of Citizens United and so on... then I am all ears. 

 

 

[megaplayboy]

At some point conservatives and rightward-leaning voters are going to have to contend with the fact that the incumbent isn't a "normal" president, and that there's a real element of risk in keeping him in office...regardless of how they feel about the policies of potential Democratic successors.  It feels like they've been wearing blinders or otherwise rationalizing away the hundred of red and yellow flags that have come out over the past 4 years about 45.  

[Old Man]

(redacted)

[Simon]

I’d suggest you edit that post. Now.

[Pariah]

I don't reel like there's even a place on the Left↔Right spectrum for my views any more. 

[Starlord]

Yep

[Sociotard]

2 hours ago, megaplayboy said:

At some point conservatives and rightward-leaning voters are going to have to contend with the fact that the incumbent isn't a "normal" president, and that there's a real element of risk in keeping him in office...regardless of how they feel about the policies of potential Democratic successors.  It feels like they've been wearing blinders or otherwise rationalizing away the hundred of red and yellow flags that have come out over the past 4 years about 45.  

Most of my conservative friends seem satisfied with him, actually.

 

They like that the economy is doing well. The trade wars haven't hurt the general public much, and the recession hasn't started. I have qualms with every argument I have seen along those lines, but they are my qualms. Conservatives place the current low unemployment on Trump's accomplishment list.

 

They like that he is putting lots of judges through. With four more years, he might even bump off one of the Liberal judges. They see a chance that Roe V Wade could be overturned, and to the Evangelical crowd that is enough to turn a man with Donald Trumps history of infidelity into a King Cyrus. (This is reinforced by his rolling back some of Obamas LGBTQ policies)

 

And the red flags . . . well a lot of that is down to perception. Because of their media diets, they believe that the Clintons were more corrupt that Trump, and that Obama played more golf than Trump. This really is a post-truth world.

 

A few hardliners like Romney still oppose Trump, but yes, the conservatives not only think Trump is a normal president, but that he is a good President. And you should hear how nervous Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and the others make them. They see the Democratic proposals as devastating.

[Pariah]

Some Conservatives here (and on Fox News, of course) are giving Romney a hard time about "Not being a real Conservative".  I heard some media wit (or half-wit, depending) saying that Romney was just criticizing the President in order to get a little time in the spotlight himself; he  thinks Romney just "wants to be the next Jeff Flake". 

 

I understand the whole "Loyalty to the Party" thing, but when did that become mutually exclusive with common sense?

[archer]

58 minutes ago, Pariah said:

I don't reel like there's even a place on the Left↔Right spectrum for my views any more. 

 

 

Most people can't accurately identify where individuals among our current crop of politicians lie on the political spectrum. I think that's as much of the problem as anything for many people.

 

And there's nothing to say that any politician has to be internally consistent. So people look at someone who they perceive as being on the left or the right and see something she/he does and assume that must be a policy which belongs on that part of the spectrum, even when what that politician does has nothing to do with a left or right political philosophy.

 

Having said that, the Left-Right spectrum is very simplistic at best. You can't accurately place someone who believes in "individual liberties rather than collectivism and who is a civil libertarian rather than an authoritarian" if you place real world communists at one end of your left-right spectrum and you place real world fascists at the other end of that spectrum.

 

I've seen nine and sixteen box grids which I think are more accurate at pegging people's political philosophies.

[archer]

25 minutes ago, Pariah said:

Some Conservatives here (and on Fox News, of course) are giving Romney a hard time about "Not being a real Conservative".  I heard some media wit (or half-wit, depending) saying that Romney was just criticizing the President in order to get a little time in the spotlight himself; he  thinks Romney just "wants to be the next Jeff Flake". 

 

I understand the whole "Loyalty to the Party" thing, but when did that become mutually exclusive with common sense?

 

Romney first got into the Republican party in the early 1990's if I remember correctly, it's been a while since I did the research. He had been an independent who voted for Democrats before that point in time. At the time he became a Republican, he repeatedly and very vocally said he was not any version of a conservative. And he continued doing that for years.

 

In the mid 1990's, Romney spent his campaign money running ads against the idea of replacing the progressive national income tax with a flat income tax despite the fact that his Democrat opponent wasn't saying anything about that issue and it wasn't an issue which was getting substantial press nationally. He just spent his limited campaign money running against an economic policy which a small fraction of the Republican party was for. And that fraction of the party had only a tiny presence in his home state compared their size in other states. Doing something like that isn't normal behavior for a politician. The only people who do things like that are people who have a grudge against a cause. In this case, that was a cause which was being championed by people who I consider to be conservatives.

 

After he stated running for president, Romney claimed to be a conservative. But everyone who runs for the Republican nomination claims he's a conservative because that's what you do. Bob Dole was famous for absolutely despising conservatives and even he claimed to be a conservative when he was running to become president.

 

I have no idea what most people think is a "real conservative" these days. Many Democrats I speak to think a "real conservative" is a white nationalist fascist. Most people I talk to who voted for Trump think a "real conservative" is someone who blindly supports Trump no matter what he says or does.

 

I consider "real" conservatives to be people who believe in a national government which has limited powers (and which is the kind of government the US Constitution outlines) and obeying the constitution even when you disagree with it. That leaves out Trumpism, the Religious Right, the Bush's, the Romney's, the vast majority of Republican politicians, most people in federal law enforcement and intelligence services, and most other people in the country (who don't know anything about politics and who don't want to know anything about politics).

 

(There are other issues which can be included in what a real conservative would believe. But they all grow out of the concept of national government which has limited power and following the Constitution whether you agree with it or not.)

 

I appreciate that Romney is anti-Trump. But Trump isn't a conservative (during the 2016 debates, Trump repeatedly gave an explanation of "what a conservative is" which would include Hillary Clinton as being a conservative). And Romney isn't a conservative. At least not according to the definition of conservatism that I learned in politics in the 1970's.

[Pattern Ghost]

12 hours ago, Pariah said:

I understand the whole "Loyalty to the Party" thing, but when did that become mutually exclusive with common sense?

 

I think that it got rolling when Clinton was in office, and really took off with the Tea Party in 2009. I think the Tea Party era is when we saw a lot of hyper-polarization on the Left and we started moving towards two extremes who pretty much ostracized anyone for being even leaning a little bit to the Center. Thanks Obama!*

 

 

 

 

*This was a humorous meme. It wasn't Obama's fault.

[BoloOfEarth]

2 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

I think the Tea Party era is when we saw a lot of hyper-polarization on the Left...

 

It seemed to me that the Tea Party first caused hyper-polarization on the Right.  I have little doubt that hard shift to the right caused the Left to shift further away from Center too, but honestly, who was the Tea Party ostracizing for leaning a little bit to the Center - Republicans or Democrats?

[Pariah]

I was a Republican at the time, and those folks made me nervous. Still do.

[Ternaugh]

49 minutes ago, Pariah said:

I was a Republican at the time, and those folks made me nervous. Still do.

 

I switched my party affiliation to Independent about two years back. I had attended one of the Republican presidential caucuses several years ago wearing a little rhinoceros pin on my lapel in quiet protest to what the Tea Party was doing at the time.

[Toxxus]

19 hours ago, megaplayboy said:

At some point conservatives and rightward-leaning voters are going to have to contend with the fact that the incumbent isn't a "normal" president, and that there's a real element of risk in keeping him in office...regardless of how they feel about the policies of potential Democratic successors.  It feels like they've been wearing blinders or otherwise rationalizing away the hundred of red and yellow flags that have come out over the past 4 years about 45.  

 

The alternative for the big show was Hillary Clinton.  Picking Trump over Hillary is not like picking Trump over a host of good candidates.

Think about how bad the Republican array of candidates (15+ at one point) had to be for Trump to win.

Congressional approval rating for April 2019 is at.... 20%.

 

The people who voted for Trump (not me, but my wife of Mexican descent did) just wanted a not-politician.  She positively thrilled with how he's doing.

 

I just wanted not-Hillary for the last run.  I would have chosen Giant Meteor - and in a way I did - by voting Libertarian.

 

I was also pretty disgusted by how Bernie Sanders got robbed by the DNC.  I completely agree with his desire to throw out super-delegates completely.

 

2016 was easily the worst pair of candidates I've ever seen and I am old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pariah]

1 hour ago, Ternaugh said:

I switched my party affiliation to Independent about two years back. I had attended one of the Republican presidential caucuses several years ago wearing a little rhinoceros pin on my lapel in quiet protest to what the Tea Party was doing at the time.

 

Like this?

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

5 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

It seemed to me that the Tea Party first caused hyper-polarization on the Right. 

 

Right. Then the Left reacted, is what I'm thinking. The Tea Party itself being the hyper-polarization on the Right, and the Left becoming more extreme and tribal as a result. OFC, that timing may not be precise, nor accurate.

[Toxxus]

58 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Right. Then the Left reacted, is what I'm thinking. The Tea Party itself being the hyper-polarization on the Right, and the Left becoming more extreme and tribal as a result. OFC, that timing may not be precise, nor accurate.

 

The Wikipedia for the Tea Party origin has many ideas.  From fiscal outrage against the Bush and Obama era financial bailout and stimulus packages to this thing below:

The Tea Party movement was launched following a February 19, 2009 call by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for a "tea party,"^[14][15] several conservative activists agreed by conference call to coalesce against Obama's agenda and scheduled series of protests.

 

Makes sense that if your goals are a smaller government that spends less money ( and then taxes less ) that back to back trillion dollar bailouts for greedy corporations by both a Republican and a Democrat would get you extra spicy worked up.

 

Side Note:  Investopedia has a remarkably even handed article on National Debt.  I had almost forgotten what an article that wasn't in favor of one party or the other looked like.

 

National Debt is over $60,000 per person and likely to double during Trumps presidency (like it did for Bush and Obama) due to most of the costs being baked in and unstoppable without congress actually doing their job.

 

Canada could teach us a thing or two in this area (InvestoPedia):

 

Spending Cuts: Canada faced a nearly double-digit budget deficit in the 1990s. By instituting deep budget cuts (20% or more within four years), the nation reduced its budget deficit to zero within three years and cut its public debt by one-third within five years. The country did this without raising taxes.

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

That's an interesting note, Toxxus, but not on the topic that I was replying to, so much, which was when the extreme polarization started. My reply had nothing really to do with the Tea Party movement or its motivations or goals. In fact, I was only using the TP movement to set a time frame.

 

During the Clinton era, the Right-leaning media, the likes of Limbaugh, were starting to ramp up. During the Tea Party era, is when I think the left was starting to really ramp up. This, based solely on my own memory of the levels of rhetoric in the media and from politicians. Whenever it started, I'd say it's definitely snowballed into absurd levels on both sides by now.

[Toxxus]

12 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

That's an interesting note, Toxxus, but not on the topic that I was replying to, so much, which was when the extreme polarization started. My reply had nothing really to do with the Tea Party movement or its motivations or goals. In fact, I was only using the TP movement to set a time frame.

 

During the Clinton era, the Right-leaning media, the likes of Limbaugh, were starting to ramp up. During the Tea Party era, is when I think the left was starting to really ramp up. This, based solely on my own memory of the levels of rhetoric in the media and from politicians. Whenever it started, I'd say it's definitely snowballed into absurd levels on both sides by now.

 

I don't think it would be possible to point to a specific event as it most likely is a series of increasingly powerful oscillations between the two groups.  Each responds more strongly to the offensive positions of the other.

 

Civil dialogue and some actual compromise would help, but I think we're probably past that point now.

 

I predict a violent outburst that directly affects a member of congress or two and then either escalation or a very sobering return to something approaching leadership and governance.

 

Someone has to be the Vasili Arkhipov in this mess.  

[Ternaugh]

5 hours ago, Pariah said:

 

Like this?

 

 

 

Mine was done in metal, but essentially, yes.

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, Toxxus said:

I don't think it would be possible to point to a specific event as it most likely is a series of increasingly powerful oscillations between the two groups.  Each responds more strongly to the offensive positions of the other. 

 

Yep, that's why I used rough time frames.