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Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)


Simon

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5 hours ago, archer said:

They just announced this morning the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tested positive for COVID.

 

The administration will have to find a new person to lie to the press for at least the next two weeks.

 

Bizarrely, the announcement emphasized that McEnany had no advance knowledge of Hope Hicks' positive test before the news on that broke that Thursday.

 

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/breaking-white-house-press-secretary-kayleigh-mcenany-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/

 

Not sure it's so bizarre, for the eariler parts of Thusday.  Trump's collaborators will play ANY piece of information that Trump wouldn't want spread, as close to the vest as possible.  And, yeah, why tell the press secretary?  Remember here, you gotta think like a Trump lackey.

 

5 hours ago, dmjalund said:

to Trump, everyone's disposable

 

I saw the same point about the Secret Service...they're seriously angry because, yes, now THEY have to be quarantined after that freaking stupid tour about the grounds.  I wouldn't say disposable tho;  I'd go with irrelevant, or inconsequential.  They simply are non-factors in his decision-making processes.

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Trump just took a car then a helicopter ride back to the White House (exposing Secret Service agents and Marines to COVID).

 

As soon as he got to the doors of the White House, Trump took off his mask.

 

There were White House photographers on either side of him, within six feet, to take pictures of the event (exposing them to COVID).

 

Trump went inside without a mask. You could see a crowd of people, presumably White House staff or administration staff, there to greet him (exposing them to COVID).

 

In close-ups, it was clear that Trump had his orange make-up on his face so his make-up person had to have gotten close to him while Trump wasn't wearing a mask.

 

I'm sure there will be news stories about it available in a few minutes.

 

Geez, what a murderous jerk.

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The majority of the developed world's democracies have multi-party political systems. It's really not that bad. There's more representation of the spectrum of viewpoints in the country; and if the party with the largest number of elected members isn't a majority, it forces them to cooperate and compromise with other parties.

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2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

The majority of the developed world's democracies have multi-party political systems. It's really not that bad. There's more representation of the spectrum of viewpoints in the country; and if the party with the largest number of elected members isn't a majority, it forces them to cooperate and compromise with other parties.

Doesn't it sometimes allow awful little parties to become kingmakers? Essential tiebreakers, and they have to be given something awful to get that broken tie?

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Guess that depends on how you define, "awful." Sure, extremists sometimes get elected, and to get their support a non-majority party may need to make concessions they otherwise wouldn't. But the extremists have to compromise, too, if they want a seat at the table. If they push too hard the other party won't work with them.

 

A minority party has to obtain enough votes to pass its legislation, from whichever party will support it. Sometimes that's on a bill-by-bill basis; at other times a formal coalition is formed, with members of each party involved being appointed to positions of authority within the government.

 

In a parliamentary system elections typically aren't required on a fixed date, although in Canada there's a maximum of five years after one general election until another one has to be called. If a government is unable to muster enough support to pass legislation, that may trigger a vote of confidence in the government among all the elected members of Parliament. If the government loses that vote a new election has to be called.

 

Canada, the UK and Australia don't really have an "executive branch" of government. The largest elected party forms the new government, with the party leader as its head and members of the cabinet almost always chosen from among the other elected members. So the conflict you see in the US between a President from one party and Congress dominated by another doesn't occur.

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Yes: Israel is the prime example, in which the major parties (Labor and Likud) must grovel to ultra-orthodox micro-parties to get those one or two more delegates they need for a majority coalition. It makes some rational policies (such as letting Palestinians have a functioning state) impossible. But that may be a peculiarity of Israeli culture and politics.

 

Coalition government can also be unstable: Over the years, I've heard many news stories about "Italy's governing coalition collapses again." But that too may be a matter of political culture more than an intrinsic feature of the constitutional structure.

 

Though I gather the details of how one sets up such a system can influence the final results a lot. Like, what percentage of voters need to support a party before it gets representation in the parliament? If you set the bar too low, you get fringe or fanatical one-issue micro-parties.

 

Back in high school, my civics teacher noted these issues. He suggested that the US electoral system was actually useful in that while it reduced politics to two parties, those parties had to be internal coalitions of people with varied interests. This in turn made it possible to work across parties -- Rep. Joe Blow (D) might agree with fellow Democrats on most issues, but he might vote with Republicans on a few others, while Rep Richard Row (R) might occasionally be lured into a deal with the Dems.

 

But that was 40 years ago. The system has broken down because, as columnist David Brooks said in a recent column, the Republicans are no longer a political party. They're a culture war identity movement. But then, Americans used to have multiple, intersecting interests and identities pulling them in different directions as well. They had political policies, economic interests, religious identities, regional interests, and others, creating cross-linkages. We were all coalitions. For a significant fraction of the electorate, however, all the interests have now collapsed into the one grievance of realizing that the country is no longer going to be a straight, white, Christian, pro-capitalist, rural-identifying nation that grudgingly lets "those other people" live here (so long as they mind their place). And they no longer perceive cross-linkages to tirn "those other people" into "us."

 

The irony is that by curdling into this one grievance-based identity, Republicans are making everyone else Democratic by default. And whatever differences American Muslims may feel with American Hindus (say), or Blacks with Koreans, or any other pairing you might name, Republicans have given them one issue on which they must all agree: They are not going to be pushed to the side any longer as second-class citizens.

 

Dean Shomshak

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2 hours ago, Cancer said:

Nature stops short, I think, of an actual endorsement in the US presidential election, but it pulls no punches in an editorial piece on just how devastating the Trump administration has been for science and academic freedom, including phases like "... may never recover."

 

The fact that Nature and Scientific American feel compelled to make ANY kind of political statement is mind-blowing.

 

And IMO it is not an overstatement that, should Trump win a second term, the world will never recover.  By the time he's gone, he'll have done SO much damage that it won't be possible.  As it is, rebuilding the infrastructure may be tough (how many senior researchers have fled, how long will it take for quality young talent to fill in?) and rebuilding public trust will be exceptionally hard, even if Biden wins.

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19 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Back in high school, my civics teacher noted these issues. He suggested that the US electoral system was actually useful in that while it reduced politics to two parties, those parties had to be internal coalitions of people with varied interests.

That's quite shocking. The teacher can't be blamed, but the idea is a mix of propaganda and idiocy.

 

The "internal coalitions of people with varied interests" is a particular gem. On the one hand, it espouses a model of cross-class alliances (propaganda), and on the other ignores that any mass political party will contain people with "varied interests" (idiocy).

 

 

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Is Trump going even further off the deep end?

 

The Fed chairman calls for a stimulus package.  Trump is trying to slam the door on any package before the election.  He's "promising" a package after the election.

 

Like anyone can trust that?

 

Like anyone else can be blamed if the economy nosedives?

 

Or is this another grandstand, and he'll reverse himself to say, see, I got it done...can't ignore that.

 

Still...beyond the usual narcissistic reactions, this feels simply out of control.  And Nate Silver made a point over on FiveThirtyEight 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-economy-was-trumps-one-remaining-advantage-now-he-might-have-blown-it/

 

that he just handed the high ground to the Democrats.  The blame now ALL goes on him.  

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