Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, DShomshak said:

At this point, yeah, I think the best option is to try negotiating a peaceful divorce. My two proposals are:

 

 

You realize that this would mirror forging an Israeli/Palestinian agreement...with the problems and issues scaled up from Israel-sized to USA=sized....

[Simon]

It also wouldn't work as intended -- reservations still fall under federal law.

[DShomshak]

I realize the legalities would be complicated; and I made the comparison to South Africa's "homelands" to make clear this wouldn't exactly parallel Native American reservations. The "Albistans" wouldn't exactly be territories like Puerto Rico or Guam, either.

 

My paper today had an editorial by Leonard Pitts addressed to Democrats in general and Kirsten Sinema in particular, the gist of which is that the old Union is as dead as was once the Civil War started. Trying to restore it is a fool's hope. Just as Lincoln realized he couldn't restore the status quo ante, leading to the Emancipation Proclamation, Dems like Sinema must realize it's time to reinvent the United States again.

 

I would be interested in finding out how many Republicans would willingly give up any Federal participation in order to gain nearly-unfettered local control. It's a fairly "out there" proposal, but I agreewith Pitts that there's no going back.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Cygnia]

‘WE ALL QUIT’: How America’s Workers Are Taking Back Their Power

[archer]

4 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I realize the legalities would be complicated; and I made the comparison to South Africa's "homelands" to make clear this wouldn't exactly parallel Native American reservations. The "Albistans" wouldn't exactly be territories like Puerto Rico or Guam, either.

 

My paper today had an editorial by Leonard Pitts addressed to Democrats in general and Kirsten Sinema in particular, the gist of which is that the old Union is as dead as was once the Civil War started. Trying to restore it is a fool's hope. Just as Lincoln realized he couldn't restore the status quo ante, leading to the Emancipation Proclamation, Dems like Sinema must realize it's time to reinvent the United States again.

 

I would be interested in finding out how many Republicans would willingly give up any Federal participation in order to gain nearly-unfettered local control. It's a fairly "out there" proposal, but I agreewith Pitts that there's no going back.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Stuff goes in such cycles in American politics.

 

We had HUAC and McCarthy running roughshod over civil liberties for years before McCarthy overreached and people started realizing he was in it more for himself than to fight a communist menace.

 

I think we're in better shape now than we were on January 5th or January 7th. Or yesterday.

 

If Trump goes through all his legal and financial problems unscathed and puts out the money/effort necessary to run a political campaign for the Republican nomination, I'll be more worried.

 

We're not quite in the same boat as Argentina was with Peron and the Peronistas.

[archer]

Inside The Bumble Takedown Of A Violent Capitol Rioter

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/capitol-attack-bumble-takedown-jan-6-andrew-taake_n_6101b17ce4b00fa7af7ea007

[unclevlad]

22 minutes ago, archer said:

Inside The Bumble Takedown Of A Violent Capitol Rioter

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/capitol-attack-bumble-takedown-jan-6-andrew-taake_n_6101b17ce4b00fa7af7ea007

 

Moronic criminals are a godsend to law enforcement.

[archer]

18 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

Moronic criminals are a godsend to law enforcement.

 

Moronic Minority Leaders on the other hand....

[Ragitsu]

Who needs power when you have culture?

[wcw43921]

"You're All Effed Up!"

[unclevlad]

7 minutes ago, wcw43921 said:

"You're All Effed Up!"

 

The problem is....

 

No one cares any more.

 

And it does absolutely nothing to move anyone's needle.  Yeah, we're seeing the tell-all books I expected, but whose opinion will be moved even slightly?  Those on the anti-Trump side can't hate him any more.  The Trumpists will ignore it along with everything else.

[archer]

16 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

The problem is....

 

No one cares any more.

 

And it does absolutely nothing to move anyone's needle.  Yeah, we're seeing the tell-all books I expected, but whose opinion will be moved even slightly?  Those on the anti-Trump side can't hate him any more.  The Trumpists will ignore it along with everything else.

 

Yeah, Trump has transitioned from pretending to be a president to grifting people who think he should still be president and pocketing the money (as seen in many ways but especially from the fact that his raising money for further audits hasn't been spent in any manner toward promoting new audits despite the "fact" that the audits were supposed to put him back into power this month).

 

As long as he's rabble-rousing and grifting, nobody's going to care about the inside story except the few who follow politics as avidly as others follow baseball.

 

Now if Trump transitions from pure grifting to actually putting together a campaign structure for 2024, the material from the tell-all books will become more relevant since it'll be dragged out for examination on news show panels, debates, commercials, etc.

 

And particularly the "Trump wanted to use the military against protestors" thing was spoiled almost in real time from leaks inside the administration. The only thing we didn't have was all the identities of everyone who was in the room at specific meetings and the exact verbiage of what was supposedly said.

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, archer said:

Now if Trump transitions from pure grifting to actually putting together a campaign structure for 2024, the material from the tell-all books will become more relevant since it'll be dragged out for examination on news show panels, debates, commercials, etc.

 

 

What examination?  

 

The Democrats, IMO, wouldn't need to.  I felt in 2015 and 2016 that Hillary was the worst possible Democratic candidate because she, more than any other, would galvanize the Republicans.  Trump's 1000 times worse in this regard.  If he somehow got the nomination, you'll have *every* Democrat making sure to vote, restrictions be damned.  Get it done SOMEHOW.  A second term is the absolute, worst-case scenario....in part because if it *could* happen, Trump would very likely have both the Senate and House.  And the Supreme Court.  Yes indeed, the apocalypse has arrived.

 

Go through it.  If Trump showed momentum in early primaries, odds are that more Congressional Republican nominees would be vocal Trumpists.  If he could win the election, they're very likely to ride in on his coattails.    It is IMO a VERY real concern that a second-term Trump would have a rubber-stamp Congress.  He wouldn't have a rubber-stamp Court, but there's too much of a chance that they'd let him get away with FAR too much.

 

Potentially more interesting would be the degree to which other Republicans try to use these against Trump.

[archer]

Third Officer Who Responded To Capitol Riot Has Died By Suicide

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gunther-hashida-officer-dead-capitol-riot_n_61083cafe4b064678eebfb24

[archer]

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has tested positive for COVID-19 a few days after he was at a small gathering with other senators on Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-W.V.) houseboat.

 

https://theweek.com/delta-variant/1003288/lindsey-graham-reportedly-attended-a-small-gathering-on-joe-manchins

[archer]

20 hours ago, archer said:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has tested positive for COVID-19 a few days after he was at a small gathering with other senators on Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-W.V.) houseboat.

 

https://theweek.com/delta-variant/1003288/lindsey-graham-reportedly-attended-a-small-gathering-on-joe-manchins

 

People recovering from COVID may have substantial drop in intelligence.

 

https://metro.co.uk/2021/08/03/people-recovering-from-covid-may-have-substantial-drop-in-intelligence-15030236/

 

Anyone care to follow Graham after his recovery to see if there's a notable drop in intelligence?

[archer]

Fourth Officer Who Responded To Capitol Riot Has Died By Suicide

 

https://www.the-sun.com/news/3401157/fourth-capitol-riot-officer-dead-by-suicide/

 

With these two quick back-to-back suicides, it makes me wonder if it's a response to the poor reception given to the officers who testified recently in front of the House committee.

 

I mean, the committee itself treated the officers well. But I saw the officers savaged in public responses to the testimony.

[Lord Liaden]

Right-wing media have been coming down very hard on those officers after their testimony, calling them cowards and/or liars. That almost certainly translated into hostility from some members of their home communities.

 

It just goes to prove that the Right "support the police" only when it's convenient.

 

1 hour ago, archer said:

 

People recovering from COVID may have substantial drop in intelligence.

 

https://metro.co.uk/2021/08/03/people-recovering-from-covid-may-have-substantial-drop-in-intelligence-15030236/

 

Anyone care to follow Graham after his recovery to see if there's a notable drop in intelligence?

 

How could you tell?

[BoloOfEarth]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

How could you tell?

 

You beat me to it.

[TrickstaPriest]

3 hours ago, archer said:

With these two quick back-to-back suicides, it makes me wonder if it's a response to the poor reception given to the officers who testified recently in front of the House committee.

 

I almost immediately saw tons of comments online suggesting that they were assassinated.  Because reasons.

[Ragitsu]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Right-wing media have been coming down very hard on those officers after their testimony, calling them cowards and/or liars. That almost certainly translated into hostility from some members of their home communities.

 

It just goes to prove that the Right "support the police" only when it's convenient.

 

People have called for attempts to "placate" and "reason with" these neanderthals.

 

...nah...

 

Personally, I think the sooner they're outed and confronted, the better.

[TrickstaPriest]

It's the anti-mask, anti-vaccine, climatechange-is-a-hoax political group 'in particular' that's a huge problem.

 

The problem is that the election story is more or less uniting a lot of 'generally-right-wing' political groups into a potentially dangerous force.  Dangerous for everyone, even themselves.

 

So I won't get too down on people for 'support the police' and so on

[DShomshak]

I've heard a lot of high-minded hand-wringing on NPR about the need to find the right message and trusted messengers to vax-and-mask refusers. I speculate that this approach is itself wrong. At least for the 50% of Republicans who tell posters they will never, NEVER! get vaccinated against Covid, a principal motive seems to be defiant rejection of hated authority figures. Therefore, perhaps the best tactic would be for some supremely hated bogeyman from the Left -- Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, or AOC (hm, bogeywomen?) -- to sneer and gloat that Trump's base is killing itself off. The delta variant is so contagious that every unvaccinated, maskless person is going to catch it in the next year or so, and it seems to be more lethal as well. With Congressional seats and state electoral votes coming down to a percent or less, the loss of another couple hundred thousand Republicans can only be good for Democrats. So thanks for the Congressional seats that are going to flip and the White House win in 2024, suckers!

 

At least, to attempt such a ploy would be the high-minded, compassionate thing to do. I intend simply to make popcorn.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

But can you imagine the reaction from Democratic supporters if one of those high-profile Democrat legislators was to take that reverse-psychology approach? Accusations of callousness, gloating at the suffering of others, extreme political partisanship, and ironically, sinking to the level of the Right... that tactic could blow up in their face and sink their own political careers.

 

Mind you, Hillary Clinton might be able to pull it off, if she was willing to take a hit for the team. Her political career is over anyway, and she's already widely despised by the Left as well as the Right. And you just know if she said something like that the right-wing media would be playing and railing against it 24/7.

[unclevlad]

As noted, it would only increase the separation and hostility.  Very simply, IMO...if that can't be reduced, this country will fail.  The inability to take coordinated action, or to maintain needed, long-term policies as we whipsaw between factions will be extremely wasteful and ruin any chance of success.  Factional tension will rise.  Just consider 2020, and the anger you felt over and over again at Trump...and conversely, how much anger was felt by mask refusers and the like.  I feared larger-scale violence;  nothing progressed beyond individual confrontations this time, that I can recall.  That isn't a stable situation, though.  Especially when financial pressure rises.

 

One serious concern for me is that factionalism increases isolation, when unification is needed.  Isolation amplifies tendencies to selfishness and focusing only on self-interests.  And that's the path to failure.