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Killer robot posted:Historically it's not normal to expect there to be and people who say it with certainty are nearly always wrong. At this point in 2015 Clinton was a pretty safe bet but lots of people were as positive she'd be running against juggernauts like Walker or Jeb as they were about DeSantis cruising to the White House 2024 not that long ago. And that's a year out from the primary. For better recent equivalents What were the big bets for 2008 GOP candidates in 2003? Zwabu posted:Whitmer? Duckworth? Newsom? Sherrod Brown? Just because we spend all our time here talking about Biden and his lame VP pick and Bernie doesn't mean there's zero bench. Historically, nobody "seems like a presidential candidate" until they're actually winning a primary. We just got a little thrown off by the last three Dem nominees being an obvious superstar and two "living legends". But nobody gave a gently caress about, e.g., Bill Clinton in 1991. DarkCrawler posted:And who are these people, so pure of heart, that they will forgo someone driving their interests because they are mean to Donald Trump? Let's take your example. "Haha, your brother died of drinking himself to death." Well, gee, I had a loved one drink themselves to death. A lot of people have. Do you think it would make them feel good to think about Fred Trump Jr.'s pain and suffering? Or do you think that pointing out that Trump has suffered the same personal tragedy that they did would humanize him? Do you it's more likely that they would say, "Gee, I am super excited to participate in this election!" or do you think they would get depressed about politics and disengage? Speaking as somebody who is, combined, 125% American and Finnish, I think what you are missing in the whole equation is that while Americans are not nicer than Finns, they value the appearance of niceness much more than Finns. Certainly the kind of Americans who ask themselves questions like "should I vote for a Presidential candidate?" and "which one?", who have spent their whole lives so studiously trying not to piss anyone off that they forgot to ever actually form a single opinion. e: More responses! Ghost Leviathan posted:It's also pretty specifically a Democrat thing too at this point, thanks to having aggressively shut out younger generations for near two decades at this point at least while Republicans quickly remove anyone who doesn't seem useful even to stonewall. To whatever extent the Republicans have been less captured by an entrenched leadership it's because their voters are constantly flipping out on those leaders and beating them in primaries (Eric Cantor) or otherwise forcing them to end their careers (Boehner, Ryan, McCarthy six months from now.) And at the end of the day we are still talking about Mitch McConnell's party. aBagorn posted:scuttlebutt out of the PA dem machine is that Josh Shapiro has his eye on 2028 so add another milky and toasted white dude to the pile Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 13:35 on May 19, 2023 |
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May 19, 2023 13:21
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Mellow Seas posted:Eh... Republicans are also led by ancient ghouls, it's just that they're furtive billionaires like Harlan Crow and Rupert Murdoch, who then send idiots with good hair like Matt Gaetz to represent them in Congress, cast their votes, and absorb their scandals. (They are also about to run a man born in 1946 for the third election in a row.) I feel the difference here is then that the Republican kingmakers care about results and recognise political office as a means of accomplishing that- and where the actual power lies under capitalism- while Democrats seem to be firmly in thrall to a cult of careerism where you cling to the big chair for every possible second like St Peter will judge you by your political resume. Either that or they spent so long clearing the bench to make drat well sure this time Hillary won't have any viable challengers that they forgot why they were doing it, and now it's just what they do.
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May 19, 2023 13:41
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Mellow Seas posted:Shapiro is Jewish, so while you could describe him as white, this is an oversimplification. I know he's Jewish, i met him at a bar mitzvah (his nephew or some other relation) at the shul i work at.
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May 19, 2023 13:48
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I'm not all that surprised when women, who got into politics in the sixties and seventies and dealt with men constantly telling them they'll never get far, reply to anyone pressuring them to retire because of their age with, "Over my dead body."
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May 19, 2023 13:48
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nine-gear crow posted:The Democratic party establishment will never allow her to become the nominee, and even if she somehow made it to the general, the US electorate would never willingly choose a woman for president, so pick a more "realistic" option from your slate of milquetoast white men, please. A woman has already run as the Democratic Party’s nominee and won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. Obviously that’s not winning under the current system, but to see that happen less than a decade ago and then declare with absolute certainty that a woman would never win is absolutely bizarre.
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May 19, 2023 13:49
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Baronash posted:A woman has already run as the Democratic Party’s nominee and won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. Obviously that’s not winning under the current system, but to see that happen less than a decade ago and then declare with absolute certainty that a woman would never win is absolutely bizarre. I think you missed the tone of that, but that'll absolutely be an argument pulled out when the wrong woman tries to run. Star Man posted:I'm not all that surprised when women, who got into politics in the sixties and seventies and dealt with men constantly telling them they'll never get far, reply to anyone pressuring them to retire because of their age with, "Over my dead body." And now they've lost you Roe.
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May 19, 2023 13:56
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Roe was taken. Nancy Pelosi wasn't just carrying it around and then dropped it. Blame the people who do the bad stuff.
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May 19, 2023 13:58
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Enablers are culpable. People itt talk about 'playing the game' of politics. Playing it extremely poorly should be judged.
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May 19, 2023 13:59
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"Person who tried to stop something and failed," the commonly accepted definition of "enabler."
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May 19, 2023 14:00
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Also, wait the Space Force is still an actual thing? Space Force was basically just reorganizing different space-related groups in the Air Force into one department. It was something they have been recommending since 2000, but never really got done. The only real significant change in operations was that Trump thought it was cool and gave them their own uniforms. Otherwise, it was mostly an org chart restructure and a symbolic "we care about space/space is the future" statement.
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May 19, 2023 14:02
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Ghost Leviathan posted:And now they've lost you Roe. I'm not defending them. I think Feinstein can't serve anymore, and Ginsburg failed to recognize the increasing polarization and the consequences of dying during a Republican administration.
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May 19, 2023 14:02
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Space Force was basically just reorganizing different space-related groups in the Air Force into one department. It was something they have been recommending since 2000, but never really got done. The only real significant change in operations was that Trump thought it was cool and gave them their own uniforms.
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May 19, 2023 14:03
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I don't know if I saw anybody mention this, I heard it on "Majority Report": Feinstein basically said some stuff upon her return that removes any question whatsoever as to whether she has a shred of competence remaining. Sen. Dianne Feinstein says 'I've been here' after being asked about her absence from Capitol Hill quote:During her arrival at the Capitol for votes, she appeared confused and was heard asking staff, "Where am I going?" quote:And in an interaction with reporters Tuesday, as reported by the Los Angeles Times and Slate, Feinstein appeared confused by questions about her absence, saying, "I haven't been gone. I've been here, I've been voting. Please, either know or don't know." quote:It is not clear if Feinstein was referring to just the past week since her return or referring to the past several months while she was recovering at home.
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May 19, 2023 14:08
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Mellow Seas posted:Blame the people who do the bad stuff. You can blame multiple people for bad things when they contributed to the bad things happening. Feinstein is holding up the judicial appointment system at a time when Dems desperately need to make a bunch of appointments, for no other reason than feeding her own power hungry ego. RGB had the opportunity to prevent the conservatives from taking the Supreme Court, knowing Roe was in danger, and again chose to feed her own ego than take that option. Both of those things are themselves bad things. And bad things done to hurt the cause are far more egregious when done by allies, and it is far more *useful* to criticize that behaviour since an appropriate narrative will reduce the odds of it happening in the future, specifically because the motivating factor for doing those bad things was the narrative. There is no practical benefit to blaming the enemy in this way - doing so only influences their behaviour to make them more likely to act in the way we don't want. There are other ways of engaging with them, and we are pursuing those ways. It's not like anyone here finds the Republicans guiltless or not monstrous.
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May 19, 2023 14:08
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GlyphGryph posted:It's not like anyone here finds the Republicans guiltless or not monstrous. This country just ain't gonna be any good as long as 45%+ of the population is willing to vote for those kinds of people (and 25% is eager to vote for them). Even if we entirely changed our government, those people would still be here. Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 14:16 on May 19, 2023 |
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May 19, 2023 14:11
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Mellow Seas posted:No, but it feels like they're regarded as ogres, or NPCs, almost beyond moral examination. People act like the Democrats are the preschool teachers who are supposed to keep the kids from putting the blocks in their mouths, which seems off kilter to me when the kids putting the blocks in their mouths are 50 year old men holding semiautomatic rifles. Maybe we should speak with them directly. I think of them more as orcs but that term has been reserved for Russians, apparently
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May 19, 2023 14:13
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Ghost Leviathan posted:And now they've lost you Roe. I think Trump did that. He even said so!
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May 19, 2023 14:28
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The Republicans are closer to enemies in a war than kids in a preschool. Criticizing your soldiers for leaving gaping holes in your defense against the enemy is not casting them in the role of preschool teacher.
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May 19, 2023 14:35
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Ghost Leviathan posted:IIRC most of the really ancient ones aren't even boomers yet, though the difference is probably academic. The Republicans have more leadership turnover because the leaders leave politics for cushy corporate jobs as soon as things get annoying. Guys like Gingrich, Hastert, Boehner, and Ryan weren't removed - they voluntarily retired to go spend the rest of their days in highly-paid sinecures. They left leadership when they left Congress. There's occasional exceptions, like Cantor (who was primaried) or McConnell (who's clung to the top spot in the Senate GOP caucus longer than any other GOP majority/minority leader in history) but for the most part GOP leadership seems to be in it to get rich and then retire to luxury. Dem leadership seems much less interested in taking the revolving door to a wealthy retirement. Rather than spending a couple of terms in leadership and then retiring to lobbying or corporate board seats, Dem leaders tend to stay in Congress for the long-term, sometimes remaining in Congress even after they step down from a leadership seat.
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May 19, 2023 14:38
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Feinstein's entourage just needs to hold on for a couple more years until technology advances, and then they can keep her (corpse) behind closed doors and a regular delivery of AI deepfake appearances.
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May 19, 2023 14:54
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GlyphGryph posted:The Republicans are closer to enemies in a war than kids in a preschool. Criticizing your soldiers for leaving gaping holes in your defense against the enemy is not casting them in the role of preschool teacher. Now, maybe there's something like a political war, but that war follows very specific rules. The main rule is "how much power you have is determined by how many votes you get." And even Sun Tzu himself could not win that war, within those rules, without popular support. As long as the Republicans have support from all those people listed above, who we are quite clearly living harmoniously with, Republican politicians will have a good fighting position. I wouldn't criticize a soldier who failed to defend his position against the enemy if I hadn't given him a rifle to shoot back with...
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May 19, 2023 14:55
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The "working forever until you die" seems like a Boomer thing rather than just a older women thing to be honest. Many I've met are scared to retire because they figure they will never be able to get another job, or don't know what they would do with themselves afterwards.
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May 19, 2023 15:11
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Mercury_Storm posted:The "working forever until you die" seems like a Boomer thing rather than just a older women thing to be honest. Many I've met are scared to retire because they figure they will never be able to get another job, or don't know what they would do with themselves afterwards. There’s loads of people my age who say they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves without work. I pity these sad, broken people
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May 19, 2023 15:22
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A lot of people get most of their social interaction, time away from their spouse, routine, and affirmation from work. I don't think I will be one of those people, but I can understand how some people feel like their entire social life, routine, and reward/challenge/affirmation system for the last 30 years going away would leave them not sure what to do. It is definitely more prevalent among older generations, but it is not an exclusively boomer thing.
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May 19, 2023 15:47
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Ghost Leviathan posted:IIRC most of the really ancient ones aren't even boomers yet, though the difference is probably academic. Not sure what the support for this is, at least in Congress--ages seem pretty similar between the parties, really: quote:Overall, the median age of House Democrats is 58.1, while the median age of House Republicans is 57.4. In the Senate, Democrats’ median age is nearly on par with that of Republicans (65.4 vs. 65.3). https://www.pewresearch.org/short-r...118th-congress/ And as far as leadership goes, Jeffries is younger than McCarthy and Schumer is younger than McConnell (yes, they're both old).
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May 19, 2023 15:49
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Ghost Leviathan posted:IIRC most of the really ancient ones aren't even boomers yet, though the difference is probably academic. Thad Cochran was so demented he could't dress himself and was dead a year after he finally "resigned due to health issues." this was in 2018.
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May 19, 2023 16:05
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FizFashizzle posted:Thad Cochran was so demented he could't dress himself and was dead a year after he finally "resigned due to health issues." McCain also died in office and missed 8 months of votes. And Strom Thurmond was only wheelchaired into the Senate to vote on close votes for about 2 years. McCain wasn't technically a mental issue from age, though.
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May 19, 2023 16:08
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Mellow Seas posted:Now, maybe there's something like a political war, but that war follows very specific rules. The main rule is "how much power you have is determined by how many votes you get." Hard disagree. The main rule is "how much power you have is determined by whose votes you get and how effectively you bend state apparatuses to maintain that power." Republicans have no problem understanding this. When Scalia died, they stole a Supreme Court seat. When Scott Walker lost the governorship to a democrat in Wisconsin, they held a lame duck session to reduce the power of the governor. When an abortion pill threatened their control over women, a judge acted way outside their purview to ban it. When republicans were one vote short of a supermajority in the NC state house, they convinced a democrat to defy the will of the voters who elected her and switch parties. It's a story playing out all over the country at every level of government.
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May 19, 2023 16:20
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:McCain also died in office and missed 8 months of votes. And McCain specifically refused to resign to avoid setting off an emergency vote to replace him. He had to make it long enough that the governor could appoint a (suitable) replacement.
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May 19, 2023 16:30
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Baronash posted:Hard disagree. The main rule is "how much power you have is determined by whose votes you get and how effectively you bend state apparatuses to maintain that power." quote:When Scott Walker lost the governorship to a democrat in Wisconsin, they held a lame duck session to reduce the power of the governor.[quote]They were able to do this because people voted for them. If people hadn't voted for them they couldn't have done it. quote:When an abortion pill threatened their control over women, a judge acted way outside their purview to ban it. quote:When republicans were one vote short of a supermajority in the NC state house, they convinced a democrat to defy the will of the voters who elected her and switch parties. It's a story playing out all over the country at every level of government.
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May 19, 2023 16:32
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Debt ceiling talks have broken down again. The Senate is still going into recess for a week next Monday, but Schumer says they can come back if there is an emergency. Biden has cancelled his trip after the G7 and is coming back to the U.S. immediately after the meeting. There is about a week left to lift the debt ceiling through some method without a default. https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1659581805517758466 https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1659581447370358786 https://twitter.com/alivitali/status/1659580181277753345 Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 16:39 on May 19, 2023 |
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May 19, 2023 16:36
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The specific individuals being criticized are not without their "rifles". Feinstein has the power to remedy the situation and allow Dem work to be done and has opted not to use it - and that's ignoring her opposition to improving things in the past. RGB had incredible power and could absolutely have retired in a way that guaranteed the security of both her cause and her legacy and instead she opted to roll the dice. Both of them have put themselves ahead of the cause and party, and in doing so caused real and significant damage, and their reputations should tightly be tarnished to discourage others from doing the same. Why you think "the votes" are relevant to this is a mystery - the correct choice for both of them did not require any votes, the votes had already been collected and they had been empowered to make the necessary decision and opted not to. Would they ideally not have been put in a situation where we had to rely on them to do the right thing? Sure, of course. But that doesn't change the fact that they have let us down and it doesn't render them blameless.
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May 19, 2023 16:41
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Also, wait the Space Force is still an actual thing? I’m dating a lady whose son is in the Space Force and it kinda rules for him, he’s a computer geek so he’s getting free education and a lifetime of good military benefits in exchange for what’s apparently a basicass IT gig in California and no combat whatsoever.
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May 19, 2023 16:44
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Star Man posted:I'm not all that surprised when women, who got into politics in the sixties and seventies and dealt with men constantly telling them they'll never get far, reply to anyone pressuring them to retire because of their age with, "Over my dead body." Yeah, that's a great point. Feinstein, Boxer, Murray & Braun were all elected to the Senate in 1992, which was dubbed "The Year of the Woman" because of the widespread reaction to the repulsiveness of Clarence Thomas & the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings after GHWB nominated him to scotus. They weren't the first female senators--I'm old enough to remember Margaret Chase Smith (who was born in 1897!) serving in the Senate--but it was pretty earth-shattering at the time as a political response to hearing a bunch of guys titter over, then shrug off, Anita Hill's testimony during the hearings, and it was the greatest number of women serving there concurrently up to then. And I'm pretty sure it was the first (if not the last) time a state was represented by two women in the Senate. To someone like Feinstein who, it appears, has lost her concept of time & place, it makes sense that what's left of her mind reverts to her glory days, including being a feminist groundbreaker at the time she first became a senator.
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May 19, 2023 16:47
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Debt ceiling talks Note that they have said, multiple times, "no, we're not going to mint the coin," but when you ask about the the 14th they say "hmm, yeah, that's interesting isn't it? Anyway we would prefer legislation." I think the coin and the 14th are both virtually guaranteed to work, and both are subject to the Supreme Court's opinion. It's pretty obvious that the "I think we should follow the constitution" maneuver is more politically appealing to the layman than the "create money from nothing" maneuver, so that's what they're going with. GlyphGryph posted:Why you think "the votes" are relevant to this is a mystery - the correct choice for both of them did not require any votes, the votes had already been collected and they had been empowered to make the necessary decision and opted not to. Winning 51% is not enough to get the desired results. That's not how our system works. Republicans can't really get poo poo done when they win 51% either. The fact that winning 51% isn't enough doesn't mean that the votes don't matter. It just means you have to get more of them. How much more? There's not a magic number. Every seat helps. Winning by any kind of significant margin is hard, and it relies on convincing rhetoric at all levels from grassroots to the top, at the same time that there is another group, of approximately equal power and influence, trying to achieve the exact opposite thing.
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May 19, 2023 16:52
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Main Paineframe posted:= This is not a breakdown by party, but makes me skeptical of your claim, given the number of Democratic names I recognize. The Senate has always attracted & kept the olds--it used to be that almost all its members had first served in the U.S. House of Representatives for a while (including those four women in 1992, iirc)--but I do think there are factors other than their hearts being invested in public service that weigh toward that.
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May 19, 2023 16:54
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GlyphGryph posted:Feinstein has the power to remedy the situation and allow Dem work to be done and has opted not to use it She literally no longer does. Part of the diagnostic criteria of Alzheimer’s is “lack of insight.” She no longer knows who or what she is.
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May 19, 2023 16:57
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Mellow Seas posted:They were able to do this because people voted for them. If people hadn't voted for them they couldn't have done it. That's not the argument you were making. You specifically said that the amount of power you have is determined by the number of votes you get. Well a plurality of voters pulled a lever for the man who was constitutionally empowered to fill the vacant supreme court seat. If anything, the point you're making here supports my argument, which is that power is determined largely by whose votes you get, like the votes of people in states where nobody lives, which inexplicably grants the residents of those states a greater voice. Meanwhile, acting like the decisions of political appointees (such as certain judges or heads of state agencies) are not policy decisions is absolutely bizarre. This is what I was talking about when I said that holding power involves bending state apparatuses to your will. The choices of political appointees in charge of federal, state, and local agencies influence an absolutely massive amount of the day to day lives of citizens living within those areas, and oftentimes these decisions or directives are harder to revert than the "big decisions" being made in legislatures because of the combined effects of brain drain, neglected infrastructure, and lack of access.
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May 19, 2023 16:59
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Baronash posted:That's not the argument you were making. You specifically said that the amount of power you have is determined by the number of votes you get. Baronash posted:Meanwhile, acting like the decisions of political appointees (such as certain judges or heads of state agencies) are not policy decisions is absolutely bizarre. Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 17:08 on May 19, 2023 |
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May 19, 2023 17:02
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Willa Rogers posted:This is not a breakdown by party, but makes me skeptical of your claim, given the number of Democratic names I recognize. I'd say it's more a matter of most (all?) politicians will weigh their options at some point and decide whether it's worth it to continue in politics, or semi-retire for a paycheck. Part of that is the likelihood of success in either arena - any Senator who is facing a stiff enough electoral challenge may decide it's not worth the time and stress to campaign again. There are also politicians who may find it difficult to find the consulting/lobbying job they want, depending on how many people they pissed off, which would figure into the decision. Sinema and Cruz are two people who fit that bill. And of course, there are probably true believers for both sides of the coin as well - those who see politics as their goal, a career in public service, vs. those who just want a cushy 6-7 figure job at a think tank, lobbying firm, or law firm.
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