POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[spmetla]

The far left of the Democrats don't want to recognize that Biden's win was a win for centrist policies. Trumps biggest successes in the last few months have been associating Democrats (Biden) as socialist/communist, anti-law enforcement, and anti oil/industry. Just like rioters and trouble makers disrupted and destroyed the base message of the whole BLM protests, the expansion of that to the "cancel" culture makes a lot of center-right people vote Republican. I think Maher was spot on.

If the Democrats position themselves as the solid centrist party then they'll actually be able to get things done, both parties going to the extreme is what has led the government system swinging like a pendulum.

It's the same with what happens after Trump is out of office. I'm all for the GAO, DOJ and FBI investigating him for things he may have done, especially in the realm of emoluments and Hatch Act violations not to mention the potential political things. The danger of sitting politicians calling for the jailing of the predecessors becoming normal is something that must be tread carefully. Trump should be called to account but it needs to look legitimate and not like a hit job otherwise this will be the norm when Republicans take back the presidency and house as will happen again someday.

All this makes me really wish we had Ranked Choice voting at all levels of Government. That would allow people to vote for their extreme ideals without having to throw their votes away while at the same time not making it necessary for the two parties to be such "Big Tent" parties that have such strong internal debates about what makes a true R or D.

[rory_20_uk]

True, there is a danger of the new team looking into crimes the last team did... although I would have thought that the rule of law is more important and such behaviour would encourage, y'know, not breaking the law in the first place. I am sure there is a theoretical risk of such machinations looking like a "hit job" but here we have a President who quite cheerfully enriched himself to an extent that has never occurred before as assets were not put in a blind trust. The last time was Nixon and personally I think that pardoning him was the wrong thing to do as again... he Broke The Law. Standards should be higher in the highest offices, not some mumbling about loss of reputation is somehow itself enough.

The last thing most politicians want is what the voters want - a system of government where every politician has to do what the voters want else they get voted out. What politicians want is what voters do not want - a career that could last for decades with little if any competition. First Past The Post ensures that there are two big parties in charge and makes it almost impossible for any other parties to get in on the action.

[spmetla]

True, there is a danger of the new team looking into crimes the last team did... although I would have thought that the rule of law is more important and such behaviour would encourage, y'know, not breaking the law in the first place. I am sure there is a theoretical risk of such machinations looking like a "hit job" but here we have a President who quite cheerfully enriched himself to an extent that has never occurred before as assets were not put in a blind trust. The last time was Nixon and personally I think that pardoning him was the wrong thing to do as again... he Broke The Law. Standards should be higher in the highest offices, not some mumbling about loss of reputation is somehow itself enough.

The last thing most politicians want is what the voters want - a system of government where every politician has to do what the voters want else they get voted out. What politicians want is what voters do not want - a career that could last for decades with little if any competition. First Past The Post ensures that there are two big parties in charge and makes it almost impossible for any other parties to get in on the action.

Just to be clear, I really REALLY dislike Trump and think he deserves some fines and jail for the things he and his family have done (Emoluments, Hatch Act, personal political favors from foreign powers, nepotism, interfering in the courts). With a third of the country believing everything that Trump says though it is a dangerous time to go after him even though totally legitimate. If the Republican party stood for rule of a law with no exemptions for the POTUS it could be soothed over but I fear for a future where Graham and McConnell decry any investigation into Trump and his family and call it out as a political hit job, they are both set for six years so will suffer no consequences for their actions during the next four years.
The precedent must be set that a POTUS that violates the rules will face the law, but the method must be delicately done. Ford pardoning Nixon was bad for the country. Trump giving himself and his family a blanket pardon for all their crimes would be something that must be sent to the Supreme Court to establish the limitations on pardon power.

I do hope though this Trump presidency leads to truly codifying some 'norms' into law, tradition cannot be relied upon anymore. I also think everyone sees the danger of the influence in the Justice department and the various inspector generals of all parts of the executive branch. Stronger legal protections and a bigger wedge between the Presidency and these people must be sought. Perhaps the Attorney General should be unable to be fired without house and senate judicial approval. The combination of Barr and Trump have definitely strained the system when the checks and balances cannot be relied upon if even one house of congress is part of the problem.
There certainly needs to be some real legal standards for contempt of congress and setting down in stone what constitutes executive privilege. Just as I think that both houses of congress need to agree to a set of laws about how impeachment should be done, honestly it should be a more frequently used tool in checking presidently appointed positions as they have a lot of power. Having each impeachment be a 'sandbox game' of the political environment of the time is ridiculous.

[ReluctantSamurai]

With a third of the country believing everything that Trump says though it is a dangerous time to go after him even though totally legitimate. If the Republican party stood for rule of a law with no exemptions for the POTUS it could be soothed over but I fear for a future where Graham and McConnell decry any investigation into Trump and his family and call it out as a political hit job, they are both set for six years so will suffer no consequences for their actions during the next four years.

And yet there needs to be an accounting for the murder, madness, and mayhem of the last four years. This country (at least the sane part of it) cannot move on from Trump unless there is some sort of accountability, yet that cannot be the dominant topic either. There are so many atrocities and wrong doings that need redressing, that it boggles the mind that they happened under a single presidents watch.

It isn't just the president that needs to be held accountable, but all of his enablers, appointees, and staff that gleefully went along on his coattails. Even if Trump finds a way to get pardoned from federal crimes, his cronies don't have such immunity, unless, of course, he just starts a mass pardon campaign, which will, of itself, be a form of indictment.

A special council position should be set up at the DoJ to investigate:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...-office-435876

Biden will have one tool, however, that allows him to pursue justice while also ensuring that the process doesn’t appear to be tainted by politics. That tool is the special counsel—a prosecutor appointed not by Biden, but by his attorney general, who has a measure of independence from the administration. The special counsel should be a career prosecutor who has no connection to Biden or his team, and the Attorney General should publicly state in advance that he or she does not intend to place any restrictions on the special counsel and will follow his or her recommendation.

It is, of course, impossible to make a decision regarding the prosecution of Trump in a manner that won’t be criticized by Trump and his allies, short of pardoning him or giving him a pass altogether. But appointing a special counsel takes the power away from Biden appointees and puts it in the hands of someone who is non-partisan and is not tied to the administration. That is the best move for the country, and the best realistic outcome Republicans could expect.

Regardless of the decisions made by the special counsel, Democrats will learn that even in a Biden administration, there are limits to what the criminal justice system can or should do. Some of the most objectionable actions taken by the Trump administration, such as the separation of children from their parents, don’t obviously fit into the four corners of a federal criminal statute.


That doesn’t mean that the Trump administration’s abuses should not be examined closely. The public deserves to know what their government did in their name and with their tax dollars, and Biden should consider the creation of a commission to conduct a non-criminal investigation to consider matters that the Special Counsel declines to prosecute, and publish a report that details what happened and makes recommendations for reform.

[Montmorency]

Are you saying that your opponents are predators ready to rend to pieces? That's what division within the society makes people say. It seems that you are ready to do the same to them. Biden's victory won't mend anything. You are in for years of Two Americas.

I don't understand your position. Ukraine is similarly divided, yet there remains such a thing as (from your perspective) good and bad - no?

There is a clear difference between an autocratic far-right regime in power and one that will: attempt to repair America's international standing and regain lost ground in trade policy; reverse Trump's environmental and labor deregulation and add new regulations; halt some of the crimes against humanity at the southern border and restore refugee and immigrant inflows to pre-Trump levels (they have reached near-zero under Trump); stop fomenting division by actively encouraging sedition and paranoia among police, militias, and reactionary whites as a political tactic and cult of personality; rebuild the professional civil service; limit and prosecute past and future corruption in government; organize a more proficient pandemic response...

Among other things. Elections have consequences, among which is never utopia or nash posledny reshitelny boy.

The far left of the Democrats don't want to recognize that Biden's win was a win for centrist policies. Trumps biggest successes in the last few months have been associating Democrats (Biden) as socialist/communist, anti-law enforcement, and anti oil/industry. Just like rioters and trouble makers disrupted and destroyed the base message of the whole BLM protests, the expansion of that to the "cancel" culture makes a lot of center-right people vote Republican. I think Maher was spot on.

If the Democrats position themselves as the solid centrist party then they'll actually be able to get things done, both parties going to the extreme is what has led the government system swinging like a pendulum.

It's the same with what happens after Trump is out of office. I'm all for the GAO, DOJ and FBI investigating him for things he may have done, especially in the realm of emoluments and Hatch Act violations not to mention the potential political things. The danger of sitting politicians calling for the jailing of the predecessors becoming normal is something that must be tread carefully. Trump should be called to account but it needs to look legitimate and not like a hit job otherwise this will be the norm when Republicans take back the presidency and house as will happen again someday.

All this makes me really wish we had Ranked Choice voting at all levels of Government. That would allow people to vote for their extreme ideals without having to throw their votes away while at the same time not making it necessary for the two parties to be such "Big Tent" parties that have such strong internal debates about what makes a true R or D.

How do you figure that this Pyrrhic victory for Democrats indicates a preference for centrist policy? You might as well argue that Biden's adoption of left policies helped him rather than not, since he ran so far ahead of more conservative Democrats.

After all this time, it should be abundantly clear that centrist approaches are inadequate to either the scale of our problems or even securing mere electoral success.

Furthermore, the idea too that ranked choice voting would lead to either a multi-party system or to Republican moderation is not supported. In almost all of the country except NY we have election results that are close to certifiable, and they have a story to tell...


I think below may have been a factor in split-ticket voters deciding to punish Trump while rewarding Republicans.

[spmetla]

How do you figure that this Pyrrhic victory for Democrats indicates a preference for centrist policy? You might as well argue that Biden's adoption of left policies helped him rather than not, since he ran so far ahead of more conservative Democrats.

After all this time, it should be abundantly clear that centrist approaches are inadequate to either the scale of our problems or even securing mere electoral success.

Furthermore, the idea too that ranked choice voting would lead to either a multi-party system or to Republican moderation is not supported. In almost all of the country except NY we have election results that are close to certifiable, and they have a story to tell...

My view is that the his siphoning off Republican votes that were variations of never-Trumpers and center-right voters gave him that edge. The ability of Trump to paint all Democrats as socialist/communist anarchists despite it being false was a way to motive his base. The more progressive wing of the Democratic party was of course not a big fan of Biden and would have preferred Warren or Sanders but thankfully turned out well as more of an anti-Trump vote than pro-Biden. Would Warren or Sanders have done better than Biden? It's possible but I honestly think that fewer Republicans would have voted for the Democratic ticket if either of them had the top billet, though we'll never know.

My support for Ranked Choice isn't with the illusion that it would result in large multi party systems like in continental Europe. I live in Hawaii and voting for anything other than Democrat is pretty much a protest vote beyond our county councilmembers and district representatives. I see it as more that it would allow for a third party option to not be a throw-away vote. I know plenty of people that prefer the Green Party or Libertarian policies and would like to vote for those but know that it's really just a throw away vote. Looking at the swing states that decided the election Jo Jorgensen seemed to have consistently gotten 1-1.5% of the vote which is about the margin that won it for Biden. If those voters could have had a second choice who knows how the election would have gone, perhaps it would have been solidly pro Trump or pro Biden. Ross Perot's run in 1992 is argued as one of the reasons Bush Sr lost and Clinton won.
Additionally there'd be more people that wouldn't mind voting for those third party options which would make them more viable and acceptable. If people could have a first choice candidate that might actually represent their ideals and then the compromise centrist candidate it is possible we'd get more voter turn out. I don't think this would make much of a difference for the POTOS position as it would likely remain R or D for the future but in the House and Senate and local legislatures third party options would be viable and possibly lead to no parties having a clear majority in the legislatures and having to form coalitions with all those ups and downs we see in Europe. Either way it'd likely stop the current trend of take power and dictate.

I agree a centrist approach will not resolve our issues alone, the solutions needed are usually 'extreme' but because of that it is difficult to actually get the majorities needed to implement them, not to mention if there are any downsides there's a reactionary movement to undo them completely. Radical change seems to not go over well in the US, even when it's absolutely necessary, incremental steps in the right direction seem to work well here though it's infuriatingly slow. The pendulum swing of each party gaining control and then dictating terms has made our domestic politics too partisan and our foreign policies fickle and unreliable.

I hope that Biden is able to get some Republican legislators to work with him on some of our pressing issues because if his turn in office is just years of filibusters and foot dragging until the mid-terms then I fear for the future of this nation.

[Montmorency]

My view is that the his siphoning off Republican votes that were variations of never-Trumpers and center-right voters gave him that edge. The ability of Trump to paint all Democrats as socialist/communist anarchists despite it being false was a way to motive his base. The more progressive wing of the Democratic party was of course not a big fan of Biden and would have preferred Warren or Sanders but thankfully turned out well as more of an anti-Trump vote than pro-Biden. Would Warren or Sanders have done better than Biden? It's possible but I honestly think that fewer Republicans would have voted for the Democratic ticket if either of them had the top billet, though we'll never know.

My support for Ranked Choice isn't with the illusion that it would result in large multi party systems like in continental Europe. I live in Hawaii and voting for anything other than Democrat is pretty much a protest vote beyond our county councilmembers and district representatives. I see it as more that it would allow for a third party option to not be a throw-away vote. I know plenty of people that prefer the Green Party or Libertarian policies and would like to vote for those but know that it's really just a throw away vote. Looking at the swing states that decided the election Jo Jorgensen seemed to have consistently gotten 1-1.5% of the vote which is about the margin that won it for Biden. If those voters could have had a second choice who knows how the election would have gone, perhaps it would have been solidly pro Trump or pro Biden. Ross Perot's run in 1992 is argued as one of the reasons Bush Sr lost and Clinton won.
Additionally there'd be more people that wouldn't mind voting for those third party options which would make them more viable and acceptable. If people could have a first choice candidate that might actually represent their ideals and then the compromise centrist candidate it is possible we'd get more voter turn out. I don't think this would make much of a difference for the POTOS position as it would likely remain R or D for the future but in the House and Senate and local legislatures third party options would be viable and possibly lead to no parties having a clear majority in the legislatures and having to form coalitions with all those ups and downs we see in Europe. Either way it'd likely stop the current trend of take power and dictate.

I don't like counterfactuals, so I would frame it as: By now we should acknowledge that from the beginning of the year Biden had the strongest case for being a successful party leader. I am not of the opinion that simply making an open, detailed, and passionate case on policy merits to the American public is sufficient to "win" votes. We know that it's perfectly possible for someone to want a $20 minimum wage and universal healthcare while hating Democrats. Status grievance is determinative. Although, again, it will take a year to do a proper post-mortem; exit polling suggests, contrary to so many expectations set by pre-election polling, that WHITE MEN swung hard toward Biden while other demographics either kept static or moved marginally toward Trump. We need to figure out what the best facts of the matter are.

I support ranked choice btw, or more precisely ranked pairs. I don't know about Libertarian voters deciding anything (except maybe Georgia or Arizona, and almost certainly the Ossof-Perdue runoff ramp), because in this election they constituted only 1% of the national vote. That is to say, as expected the third party vote share collapsed to its usual level in high-salience elections, meaning that most of the people voting Libertarian now are not poached Republicans but the hard core of the third party vote. On the other hand, I'm perfectly fine with the Republican Party going to war with the Libertarians.

A more important factor than third party voters this election (and they're not typically impactful) was, as I mentioned earlier, the Undecided vote share that split a little more evenly in 2016 going almost entirely to Trump/Republicans in this election. (Speaking of Clinton and Perot, the work I'm familiar with has indicated that Perot voters were about evenly-split in their secondary preferences).

Tangentially, if there's ever going to be an electoral structure for third parties in this country, they have to stop being joke organizations that seemingly only exist to grift followers or troll/hinder the major parties. At least, say, the Working Families party has some local existence in the Northeast, in contrast to the Greens or Libertarians.

Either way it'd likely stop the current trend of take power and dictate.

One thing I will push back against is the idea that even more gridlock in Congress would somehow produce compromise and good governance. It never has in history; meanwhile our backlog of crippling problems is just accumulating. I believe this country would have a clarifying experience, and be much better off, with a cycle under each party of total majoritarian control. Well, not under Republicans, simply because there is a serious chance of them implementing a single-party dictatorship. But if that impulse could be contained I would relish the opportunity for, say, a Democratic government to implement Medicare for All, only for a subsequent Republican government to abolish it and Social Security.

Because I believe such a rampage would permanently exhaust the Republican Party and finally end the interregnum before the birth of a new progressive age.

Again, in theory. Republicans can no longer be counted on to peacefully transfer power so that's kind of a dealbreaker. Ultimately this halfway-accelerationist argument for majoritarianism is not the actual case for majoritarianism, I'm just saying it would be preferable to the current arrangement. The argument for majoritarianism is the same as in the rest of the world, namely that majorities should have the opportunity to govern. If Clinton and Obama had had an opportunity to govern without Republican obstruction, I believe it would be much more difficult for Republicans to make the case for government dysfunction. Because it's been a cycle, right? Republicans blow shit up, the pendulum swings and Dems take power and can barely begin cleaning up the mess, before long Republicans regain power with an ever-more-radical bent and wreck even more shit...

I agree a centrist approach will not resolve our issues alone, the solutions needed are usually 'extreme' but because of that it is difficult to actually get the majorities needed to implement them, not to mention if there are any downsides there's a reactionary movement to undo them completely. Radical change seems to not go over well in the US, even when it's absolutely necessary, incremental steps in the right direction seem to work well here though it's infuriatingly slow.

Here's the thing: I'm only a socialist because of the self-evident failures of the centrist establishment. That part of the problem was that establishment's permanent and deepening siege under the forces of Reaction only emphasizes the failure to protect us.

Take climate change as an example. An international, incremental, US-led effort from the HW Bush admin on could have given us a smooth transition that hardly anyone would even have noticed. Now, however, it's the analog of facing a German front at the gates of Moscow without any national defense yet organized. Every delay or failure of what could have been productive incremental change only makes radical change increasingly necessary. I recognize this not because I love radical change for its own sake, but because I can grasp simple causality.

Constant incremental change may even be preferable to violent upheaval, but violent upheaval only becomes available/necessary because reform was lacking or absent! When there is a revolutionary regime change, sometimes one is sad to see the new regime. One is never sad to see the old one go.

Sink or swim.

I hope that Biden is able to get some Republican legislators to work with him on some of our pressing issues because if his turn in office is just years of filibusters and foot dragging until the mid-terms then I fear for the future of this nation.

The divergent and self-contained environment of the Georgia runoffs will be an interesting comparison point and testing ground. IMO Democrats should strive to make it very explicitly clear that Biden's ability to act as President is limited by control of the Senate. I would go so far as to promise that, if Republicans retain control their state will go bankrupt and schools will close, whereas if Democrats win then the country (and Georgia) will get bailouts and stimulus checks. Put everything else on the backburner for 2 months besides the immediate material consequences for Georgia and Georgians of this election.

The only other hope, laughable as it is, would be to try to bribe Susan Collins on the theory that her position is secure enough that she can go rogue from the GOP. This theory will fail, if only because by all accounts Collins is well-committed to the Republican project.

[ReluctantSamurai]

whereas if Democrats win then the country (and Georgia) will get bailouts and stimulus checks.

Perhaps....but then there's Sen. Joe Manchin (D) W. Virginia to consider:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/mem...manchin/412391

And he's already gone on record as opposing ending the filibuster, court-packing, Medicare-for-All, and Green New Deal. The only Democrat to vote yes on the Brett Kavanaugh SCOTUS nomination:

https://www.rollcall.com/2020/11/09/...he-filibuster/

50/50 may not be sufficient against a man who considers Robert C. Byrd the man who "wrote the rules of the Senate"---the same Robert C. Byrd who organized a KKK chapter in W. Virginia in the early 1940's, voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and supported the Vietnam War.

[spmetla]

I support ranked choice btw, or more precisely ranked pairs. I don't know about Libertarian voters deciding anything (except maybe Georgia or Arizona, and almost certainly the Ossof-Perdue runoff ramp), because in this election they constituted only 1% of the national vote. That is to say, as expected the third party vote share collapsed to its usual level in high-salience elections, meaning that most of the people voting Libertarian now are not poached Republicans but the hard core of the third party vote. On the other hand, I'm perfectly fine with the Republican Party going to war with the Libertarians.

Tangentially, if there's ever going to be an electoral structure for third parties in this country, they have to stop being joke organizations that seemingly only exist to grift followers or troll/hinder the major parties. At least, say, the Working Families party has some local existence in the Northeast, in contrast to the Greens or Libertarians.

Wouldn't you like it if it was okay for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to run as independents or lead one of the many progressive/socialist parties in existence without it gleaning votes away from the primary Democrat running? I think one of the reasons the third parties are jokes is exactly because they to grift followers and hinder major parties. A the local levels is where they can make a difference before taking things nationally.
That's why the new Republican tactic of running a third party candidate with a simliar last name to glean off votes from the competition is dangerous, will likely be repeated elsewhere and only a ranked voting system could totally mitigate.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/pol...247132821.html

NO-PARTY CANDIDATE IS A FACTOR
Much mystery remains around the network of unknown candidates with no party affiliation (NPA) who ran in three competitive Senate districts, most notably in Senate District 37, where the third-party candidate netted more than 6,300 votes and likely influenced the outcome.

Voters in Senate Districts 9, 37 and 39 were targeted by similar-looking political mail ads funded by a mystery donor that aimed to confuse voters in an apparent effort to shave votes from Democratic candidates.

One thing I will push back against is the idea that even more gridlock in Congress would somehow produce compromise and good governance. It never has in history; meanwhile our backlog of crippling problems is just accumulating. I believe this country would have a clarifying experience, and be much better off, with a cycle under each party of total majoritarian control. Well, not under Republicans, simply because there is a serious chance of them implementing a single-party dictatorship. But if that impulse could be contained I would relish the opportunity for, say, a Democratic government to implement Medicare for All, only for a subsequent Republican government to abolish it and Social Security.

Constant incremental change may even be preferable to violent upheaval, but violent upheaval only becomes available/necessary because reform was lacking or absent! When there is a revolutionary regime change, sometimes one is sad to see the new regime. One is never sad to see the old one go.

The divergent and self-contained environment of the Georgia runoffs will be an interesting comparison point and testing ground. IMO Democrats should strive to make it very explicitly clear that Biden's ability to act as President is limited by control of the Senate. I would go so far as to promise that, if Republicans retain control their state will go bankrupt and schools will close, whereas if Democrats win then the country (and Georgia) will get bailouts and stimulus checks. Put everything else on the backburner for 2 months besides the immediate material consequences for Georgia and Georgians of this election.

I don't want more gridlock but as each party becomes more extreme it means that daring to work with the opposition loses you your own re-election against a competitor from your own party. The idea of making medicare for all and then it being repealed a few years later is dangerous to fabric of the nation. I'd prefer that we edge the ACA toward that option, creating a public option would be a step in that direction, after people see that it's not the end of the world then take another step.

I agree on the Georgia runoffs, will be very interesting testing ground.

[Montmorency]

Something that occurs to me: Biden at times made it a plank of his campaign that conservatives should split their tickets against Trump in order to hold both parties accountable.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...-thing-923669/
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/17/polit...ach/index.html

I can't find it now, but I recall reading of one Biden talk in which he stated directly a recommendation that Republicans vote for him for President while voting Republicans downballot to keep him in check.

Might that have had some effect? Seems like suboptimal messaging at any rate.

Perhaps....but then there's Sen. Joe Manchin (D) W. Virginia to consider:

Regarding Manchin, from what I've been able to gather he has never opposed the caucus on a vote that really mattered. Although West Virginia's finances appear to be relatively-good in the short term, so that might remove some incentive.

Wouldn't you like it if it was okay for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to run as independents or lead one of the many progressive/socialist parties in existence without it gleaning votes away from the primary Democrat running? I think one of the reasons the third parties are jokes is exactly because they to grift followers and hinder major parties. A the local levels is where they can make a difference before taking things nationally.
That's why the new Republican tactic of running a third party candidate with a simliar last name to glean off votes from the competition is dangerous, will likely be repeated elsewhere and only a ranked voting system could totally mitigate.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/pol...247132821.html

Maybe if we transitioned to a parliamentary-type system, but in our social and political environment we work better as a Popular Front. Remember, this is not a normal country and won't be one for our lifetimes probably. These lights aren't coming on anytime soon.

I don't want more gridlock but as each party becomes more extreme it means that daring to work with the opposition loses you your own re-election against a competitor from your own party. The idea of making medicare for all and then it being repealed a few years later is dangerous to fabric of the nation. I'd prefer that we edge the ACA toward that option, creating a public option would be a step in that direction, after people see that it's not the end of the world then take another step.

For sure. But would such an undisguised legislative confrontation be worse than the current - Cold War?

As for polarization, bipartisanship will spring eternal among liberals. It's the psychology. Meanwhile, think about McConnell's posture toward Obama/Biden as published in Obama's memoir (see above). If there were a Republican with ideas worth hearing, to whom we could impute a good-faith willingness to collaboratively address identified issues, they wouldn't be a Republican in the first place. How many times do I have to post that Mars Attacks clip?

In my view, this utopia is what I sense coming from elated crowds in the streets and some people here. And you seem to partake in it with your metaphors of tearing opponents' throats and not taking things lying down. Add to it вставание с колен and the electoral rhetoric practiced by Americans will be remerkably close to the one used in current Russia.

I don't understand how any of those sentences relate to each other or to the contents of this thread.




Now for a rant directed at the idea that leftist ideas or activism are damaging vulnerable elected Democrats.

Here is an ad that Sen. Loeffler's (R-GA) campaign aired. (Further proof that American reactionaries outpace European ones btw.)
https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/s...02428240359424 [VIDEO]

Sen. Kelly Loeffler's new spot is all about how she's "more conservative than Attila the Hun," and includes an actor portraying a grunting Attila who delivers orders to, among other things, "eliminate the liberal scribes."

Why is it that Republicans can run on how conservative they are, and paint their opponents as socialists, and that works, but when Democrats run on how moderate they are, and correctly label all the reactionary and harmful things their opponents want to do, moderate voters get angry because they think Dems are overreacting and being hyperbolic about Republicans?
Something tells me this isn't the fault of community organizers in Minneapolis or Louisville. It's that branding and messaging thing again.

Can you imagine if a Democratic candidate in a purple district ran unironically with this as a platform?



And it received no negative attention from either party?


One lesson is becoming clear: Liberals need to be taught to resent and fear these reactionaries, so that they too can be mobilized at ever-higher rates.


Because White Evangelicals, who make up ~15% of the population, MAY have formed up to half of all Trump voters.

I was startled this week when, during a conversation with a prominent figure in Democratic circles, he blurted out to me: “People who want to live in a white supremacist society vote Republican. Those who don’t vote Democrat.”

Yes, those Evangelicals, the voting bloc who emerged in the 1970s as a reliable Republican base, forged as they were in reaction to the Democrats' civil rights turn in the 1960s, who vote for Republicans at rates comparable to the Democrats' vote share among African Americans.



Notice that Republicans (though not just evangelicals) have finally come round to abandoning the American flag, because their abstracted instincts outpace the symbolic content of it.

Many of us over the past 4 years have had to come to terms with it, but the truth is that at least 1/3 of the population is a hardcore fascist element that is spiritually animated by the Confederate mindset - which was never defeated, but rather prevailed for a century and is still in contention!

As this prescient post from 2014 says,

The essence of the Confederate worldview is that the democratic process cannot legitimately change the established social order, and so all forms of legal and illegal resistance are justified when it tries.

... The Confederate sees a divinely ordained way things are supposed to be, and defends it at all costs. No process, no matter how orderly or democratic, can justify fundamental change. When in the majority, Confederates protect the established order through democracy. If they are not in the majority, but have power, they protect it through the authority of law. If the law is against them, but they have social standing, they create shams of law, which are kept in place through the power of social disapproval. If disapproval is not enough, they keep the wrong people from claiming their legal rights by the threat of ostracism and economic retribution. If that is not intimidating enough, there are physical threats, then beatings and fires, and, if that fails, murder.

Why do Republicans and Democrats get disparate reception and treatment in the media and their audiences? Well, Republicans by and large know what they want in a way that liberals don't. It maps onto Yeat's quotable formulation that "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." Painful as it is, we can't fight an invisible war against those who have mastered the art of insurgency on American soil and in the American mind for 150 years. The people must be apprised of the threat.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Regarding Manchin, from what I've been able to gather he has never opposed the caucus on a vote that really mattered.

Not so fast... His voting record on environmental issues is abysmal, and he now stands to chair the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...e-manchin-iii/

Voted against S.J.Res. 53 which would have rescinded Trump's relaxation of emission standards for power plants; voted for the appointment of Andrew Wheeler (a former coal industry lobbyist) to head the EPA (W. Virginia is the 2d largest producer of coal in the US); voted against H.J.Res. 36 which would have relaxed regulations on methane emissions from oil and gas industry operations (a +1 for Manchin); voted for the approval of Scott Priutt as Administrator of the EPA (who later had to resign amid a slew of ethics scandals); and who voted for nearly every one of Trump's government appointees.

A mixed bag to say the least, but his stance on energy production is quite clear----he won't do anything to piss off his corporate donors in the coal industry. If he gets to chair the Senate Energy and National Resources Committee, it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to get any clean air proposals through the Senate even if the Dems pick up the two seats in Georgia.

[Gilrandir]

Our discourses have never been polite....

Most denizens of this forum try to keep civil otherwise they are reminded to do that. Or do you mean "our" as '"my" and address yourself in the second person plural (as monarchs do)?

That's declaring a fail before the man has had a chance to do anything. You have absolutely no idea what he's going be able to do, and stating that "Biden's victory won't mend anything" is BS 'fail' rhetoric which I will call out every time.

Probably you are right. I should have been more explicit and have used the "existing division within the country" instead of "anything". But I had thought that the context made it clear what "anything" I meant.

I don't understand your position. Ukraine is similarly divided, yet there remains such a thing as (from your perspective) good and bad - no?

Correction: not good or bad but worse and the worst (as far as Ukraine is concerned).

Among other things. Elections have consequences, among which is never utopia or nash posledny I reshitelny boy.

In my view, this utopia is what I sense coming from elated crowds in the streets and some people here. And you seem to partake in it with your metaphors of tearing opponents' throats and not taking things lying down. Add to it вставание с колен and the electoral rhetoric practiced by Americans will be remerkably close to the one used in current Russia.