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I've honestly been more hopeful in the last 24 hours about the state of the world than I have been for a long time. Trump is such a petulant, unstable ogre that it's forcing the rest of the world to come to terms with the reality that America will be governed by competing teams of high functioning psychopaths and malfunctioning psychopaths for the foreseeable future. The reality is anything resembling peace will have to be achieved in spite of that. North and South Korea are working towards peace without America because they are terrified that we're so god drat nuts at this point that we're going to get them all killed. The EU, Russia, and China have said they are still backing the Iran deal for similar reasons. Assuming the other world governments stick to their guns, the US really has three options. Option one is our government backs down and tries to save some amount of face, severely damaging US soft power in the process. Option two is that our government goes forward with sanctions on basically the entire world that would trigger a deep, world-wide recession which would be terrible but the United States would likely bear the brunt of it, destroy our empire in the process, and make the US a pariah state. Option three of course is starting World War II Part 2: This Time With Nukes but that's been the default and only option for the most part so at least we have some competing alternatives. Edit. If decades from now the end result of this is that the US has to give up its WMDs in exchange for sanctions being lifted I'll laugh my rear end off. Assuming I didn't freeze to death, flea bitten and toothless, inside my tin shack hovel before then. Iron Twinkie fucked around with this message at 20:29 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 20:21
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Iron Twinkie posted:I've honestly been more hopeful in the last 24 hours about the state of the world than I have been for a long time. Whoah now buster let's not put on our crazy pants and drive the clown car down to the loony bin.
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May 9, 2018 21:13
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Wow you sure do seem to hate America.
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May 9, 2018 21:16
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Ogmius815 posted:Wow you sure do seem to care about humanity.
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May 9, 2018 21:17
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If the Democrat Party refuses to give up superdelegates by 2020, then I really don't give a poo poo if the dispossessed masses burn that loving convention to the ground.
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May 10, 2018 02:46
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viral spiral posted:If the Democrat Party refuses to give up superdelegates by 2020, then I really don't give a poo poo if the dispossessed masses burn that loving convention to the ground. they're thinking about boosting the number and making people unable to run in primaries without the blessing of the party elites
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May 10, 2018 16:46
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Condiv posted:they're thinking about boosting the number and making people unable to run in primaries without the blessing of the party elites You might as well seek asylum in another Western Country if the superdelegate system stays the way it is by 2020
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May 10, 2018 18:26
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viral spiral posted:You might as well seek asylum in another Western Country if the superdelegate system stays the way it is by 2020 It's already too late, the bellweather was complete pieces of poo poo like Diane Feinstein getting re-elected and, well....
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May 10, 2018 19:00
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Condiv posted:they're thinking about boosting the number and making people unable to run in primaries without the blessing of the party elites To be fair, I'm pretty sure that article just involved that one person saying how her personal opinion is that they should increase the number, and the tweet linking the article was the only thing saying "the DNC is considering increasing superdelegates." So unless I missed something, increasing superdelegates isn't actually on the table; it's just a thing this one dumbass DNC lady thinks should happen (along with even worse stuff like creating literal smoky backrooms for vetting candidates).
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May 10, 2018 22:49
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Ytlaya posted:....I'm pretty sure that article just involved that one person saying how her personal opinion is that they should increase the number, and the tweet linking the article was the only thing saying "the DNC is considering increasing superdelegates." ... Good point. The only way they could improve on this journalistic C.F. is base the whole story on one anonymous source. see e.g., most of the Trump reporting. I'll be somewhat contrarian. I'm sympathetic to superdelegates on the ground that a party should be able to control it's brand. Open primaries, in particular, seem ripe for abuse. Instead, the real problem here is how our election laws privilege the major parties.
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May 17, 2018 15:29
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gaj70 posted:I'll be somewhat contrarian. I'm sympathetic to superdelegates on the ground that a party should be able to control it's brand. Open primaries, in particular, seem ripe for abuse. Instead, the real problem here is how our election laws privilege the major parties. Why should a tiny cabal of party leadership be the ones in control of its brand and not the members who actually make up the party.
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May 17, 2018 16:15
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Yeah if you get massive numbers of people to sign up to a political party across the country and have them vote for stuff, that's democracy.
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May 17, 2018 16:49
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gaj70 posted:Good point. The only way they could improve on this journalistic C.F. is base the whole story on one anonymous source. see e.g., most of the Trump reporting. VitalSigns posted:Why should a tiny cabal of party leadership be the ones in control of its brand and not the members who actually make up the party. So at first I was just going to give a glib "Pfft, why should anyone expect the Democratic Party to actually behave democratically" response and leave it at that, but the idea of open primaries, ripe for abuse stuck out. It begs a question as to just how much strategic cross-party voting is going on. Here's the states that have "open" primaries, and here's how they voted: quote:Alabama - Trump, Clinton So that breaks down to: quote:Trump (Insurgent) - 18 (78.2%) So the suggestion that open primaries are bad for a "establishment" democratic candidate don't bear up. I can make two general hypotheses about this election. The first is that it wasn't republicans crossing the lines to vote for Bernie, but rather that it may have been Democrats crossing over to try and game the Republican primary on the "lol, Trump will never win in the general, pleasepleaseplease let it be Trump" rationale. Second, that Clinton voters and Trump voters aren't radically different in their ideologies, since most of the "open primaries" that Clinton won, then went on to flip to Trump in the general election. In summation, Bernie would have won, Hail Satan.
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May 17, 2018 17:35
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The idea that Democratic voters crossing the aisle to vote Trump in the primaries were a significant factor in him winning the Republican nomination is frankly fanciful. If it were true that the Republican base hates Trump so much that only Democratic strategery propelled him to the nomination, then this pied-piper strategy would have worked easily and Hillary would be president now.
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May 17, 2018 17:57
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VitalSigns posted:The idea that Democratic voters crossing the aisle to vote Trump in the primaries were a significant factor in him winning the Republican nomination is frankly fanciful. I agree. The reason I forwarded that was less to say "this is what happened" than to say "the idea that open primaries are a threat to 'establishment' democrats is silly." As unlikely as it is that people fake-voted for Trump in the primary, that's STILL more realistic than saying that Open Primaries hurt picking a good Democratic Candidate because Republicans are crafty and voted for Bernie. So the latter of those statements is really loving unrealistic, and people need to stop voting for bad-Dems because "they're still better." Of the two hypotheses I put forward, I think the second is much more likely to be the case: that assuming that people would vote for the "lesser Evil" the democrats will always shoot themselves in the foot because about 50% of the people are already going to vote for the greater evil, and it only takes a handful to say "eh, why not" to swing an election. Weltlich fucked around with this message at 18:23 on May 17, 2018 |
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May 17, 2018 18:20
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Weltlich posted:So at first I was just going to give a glib "Pfft, why should anyone expect the Democratic Party to actually behave democratically" response and leave it at that, but the idea of open primaries, ripe for abuse stuck out. It begs a question as to just how much strategic cross-party voting is going on. Yes, Clinton won marginally more open primaries. But of the 14 closed primaries, Clinton won 12. So yeah, it does bear that open primaries are worse for establishment candidates.
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May 17, 2018 18:29
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Also 'winning' a primary is honestly only marginally useful info because it's not winner take all, it'd be better to exam open primary delegates vs closed primary delegates.
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May 17, 2018 18:33
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Weltlich posted:**** Good, we agree it happens. But I'll posit that the more-typical goal is to just extend the primary race, thereby weakening the eventual nominee. Rush's "Operation Chaos" may have had such an effect both 5 and 9 years ago. Also, the brand-control rules also need to work in off-year, House/Senate elections, too. One D rep (Claire McCaskill, iirc) boasted about using her campaign contributions to promote a particular R opponent. Legal, apparently, but something any party would like protection against. Weltlich posted:Second, that Clinton voters and Trump voters aren't radically different in their ideologies, since most of the "open primaries" that Clinton won, then went on to flip to Trump in the general election. IDK. Getting off-topic, but imho, both Trump and Bernie drew support from the same anti-establishment / anti-globalism crowd. I suspect there was a fair bit of crossover, despite the normal political labels. Even more off topic, we really should come up with a better metaphor than the 'political spectrum'. Two dimensions, or maybe a circle?
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May 17, 2018 18:50
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Democracy must be abolished because allowing people to vote and express their opinions weakens the nominee. No don't ask me why the nominee looks worse and worse the more people find out about him/her, if we just don't give voters the opportunity to vote they'll love us.
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May 17, 2018 18:57
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VitalSigns posted:Why should a tiny cabal of party leadership be the ones in control of its brand and not the members who actually make up the party. Fair point. The R's tend to give their base more say. Unfortunately, that base occasionally selects a wacky candidate for some obscure/non-competitive house seat, who the D's then use to club the rest of their nominees. The D's 'board of directors' model seems to reduce variability. For good or for bad. Both parties are suspicious of their "presidential cycle only" members and their "unregistered leaners," for obvious reasons.
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May 17, 2018 19:04
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love to reduce variability so we always have a corporate stooge working for billionaires as the democratic candidate truly a mixed bag
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May 17, 2018 19:08
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The Republicans control every level of government, maybe forcing uninspiring mealy-mouthed centrists whose only qualification is loyalty to party insiders hasn't been a great strategy from the standpoint of "actually winning elections." I guess if your criteria for successful politicking is something else, like say "reducing variability" (ie banning dissent from neoliberal orthodoxy) then losing the entire country to crazypants fascists has been a smashing success for the forces of ideological purity, which have achieved an unparalleled purity of elected officials with no power to govern whatsoever.
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May 17, 2018 19:14
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Maybe - just maybe - it is simply impossible to fight alienation using alienated means? Elections are the bourgeoisie's tool to get the proletariat's "assent" to their theiving, so maybe they should be eschewed in favor of a violent uprising of the working class, who would hang the capital owners and cut off the heads of the priests? I dunno, just offering a couple suggestions here.
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May 17, 2018 19:20
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It's really weird to have this idea that a political party has a "brand" it needs to "protect". Like, why? Political parties are supposed to be the expression of the political desires of the population, why the hell do they need to stick to a theme? It's clearly rooted in the idea that we can only have certain political parties and those parties need to also be restricted in what they can advocate for. Which is bollocks.
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May 17, 2018 19:25
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The argument is that the wishes of oligarchs need to be protected from democracy. But that sounds bad so euphemisms like "brand" and "abuse" are deployed instead.
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May 17, 2018 19:28
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gaj70 posted:The D's 'board of directors' model seems to reduce variability. For good or for bad. Pray tell, what is the good we get?
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May 17, 2018 19:30
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Wasn't the argument for why the DNC and DCCC were ignoring elections last year (while funding the hell out of Georgia) that their brand was too toxic for those areas?
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May 17, 2018 19:44
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gaj70 posted:I'll be somewhat contrarian. I'm sympathetic to superdelegates on the ground that a party should be able to control it's brand. Open primaries, in particular, seem ripe for abuse. Instead, the real problem here is how our election laws privilege the major parties. I feel like this logic would work in a system where third parties had a non-trivial chance of winning. But in our system, where a Democrat or Republican is almost always guaranteed to win, it is vitally important that the process of selecting the nominee be fully democratic. If you let the parties control that, it's basically the same as the public being forced to only choose between choices vetted by party leadership (who will almost always be a bunch of wealthy/powerful people). edit: Basically, letting the party control their brand, as you put it, might make sense if it were feasible for people to create their own parties and an election was a competition between many such parties. But, in practice, other parties aren't viable in our political system.
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May 17, 2018 19:49
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*gasps* not open primary abuse!
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May 17, 2018 19:51
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Radish posted:Wasn't the argument for why the DNC and DCCC were ignoring elections last year (while funding the hell out of Georgia) that their brand was too toxic for those areas? Yes and then every one of those ignored elections saw a bigger move toward the Democrat than the on-brand candidate was able to achieve in the most expensive house race in history, which just proves that the brand is in deadly peril and must be protected from voters at all costs lest they remake it in their own image instead of in the image of corporate oligarchs where it rightfully belongs.
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May 17, 2018 19:53
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https://twitter.com/Mediaite/status/1004332497000435712 wow the lesser evil strategy is finally paying dividends!
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Jun 6, 2018 19:49
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Basically if Manchin is allowed to forsake the "always vote Democrat in the general rule" I see no reason why my worthless vote is held to a higher standard and I need to pull the lever for the likes of Mark Warner.
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Jun 6, 2018 19:52
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/06/manchin-trump-west-virginia-midterms-626437quote:The president recently mocked Manchin in front of the Senate GOP caucus as trying to hug him all the time — only a slight exaggeration, by Manchin’s telling.  lesser evil indeed. now i can see why people are advocating for voting for him  paula swearengin should run as an independent against senator trump-hugger
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Jun 6, 2018 19:55
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Look he has to kiss Trump's rear end outside of the media spotlight in order to fool stupid Trump loving West Virginians into voting for him. It's not that he's ideologically closer to Trump than he isn't and most certainly won't be used as the excuse for why the Democrats are hamstrung with their agenda in 2020.
Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Jun 6, 2018 |
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Jun 6, 2018 20:01
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Condiv posted:https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/06/manchin-trump-west-virginia-midterms-626437
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Jun 6, 2018 20:52
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