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Edgar Allen Ho posted:I think Christie is my favourite GOP candidate. Wasn't he Trump's lapdog in 2016 to the point of being nicknamed Reek since everyone was watching Game of Thrones?
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Aug 10, 2023 19:08
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Bush didn't create the conservative Supreme Court majority, Nixon did (with an assist from conservative Democrats who blocked Johnson's nomination in his final year) it had been conservative since 1969. Bush simply continued the trend of replacing more moderate conservatives with far right social conservative Federalist Society picks, but that project wasn't completed under him either (see Obergefell, or Whole Women's Health). Trump finished the project when he replaced Kennedy with Brett Kavanaugh
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Aug 11, 2023 14:48
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:It had a majority of justices appointed by a Republican since the 1970's. But, those Republican appointments included people like Souter, Blackmun, and John Paul Stevens (who eventually became liberal bloc leaders on the court). They didn't get a full 5-vote majority of extremely conservative justices until the GWB-era.
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Aug 11, 2023 15:09
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At this point you're just drawing a bullseye around the bulletholes to make your numerology true. All of the conservative courts have written major decisions and the rolling back of liberal victories has been a continuous process, and John Roberts' appointment isn't the best place to draw the line. Also he was appointed in Bush's second term so it wasn't even the 2000 election that determined that anyway (also the 2000 election itself was decided by...the Rehnquist court installed by Reagan and Bush 1). If it had gone the other way a different Republican could well have won in 2004 and he would have appointed Roberts or someone like him anyway. Or Kerry could have won in 2004 etc
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Aug 11, 2023 15:29
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:What does the 20 year thing have to do with how conservative Blackmun is vs. Roberts? I don't think it is a hot take that the Roberts court is the most conservative Supreme Court in modern history and that for a long time being appointed by a Republican (like Stevens, Blackmun, or Souter) did not necessarily equal "very conservative judicial philosophy." Because your claim was that Bush created the conservative Supreme Court due to the 2000 election on some schedule of a crucial election happening every 20 years which isn't true no matter how you slice it. The court was conservative before Bush, it got more conservative after Bush, and it was the 2004 election which put him in a position to nominate Roberts anyway. He was just another step on the road, not a turning point, which was your original claim. If you want to move the goalposts to "Roberts is more conservative than Blackmun" then okay fine I agree with that proposition.
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Aug 11, 2023 16:12
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Google Jeb Bush posted:I'll toss up a watch thread Why are you trying to double their TV ratings
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Aug 24, 2023 02:44
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Mustang posted:I really don't see how Trump is going to win having already lost once to Biden and the GOP consistently underperforming in elections. In addition to what everyone else said, regular people are struggling as the cost of living exploded and the government has done very little to help. And there's a chunk of Americans who punish the party in power when conditions get bad because there's no other way to register their displeasure in a two-party system.
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Oct 4, 2023 14:15
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If the only thing you care about is getting a president with a (D) next to his name, and not his ability to do the job for four years, running an 80-year-old isn't that big a risk because there's only a small window where his death can screw you over. If he dies early enough you can still have a primary, if he dies after the Electoral College votes you have a VP, if he dies after the election but before the EC vote you can (with some coordination) pick someone else (though there is a risk of loving that up and throwing the election to the House), you're really only likely hosed if he dies right before the election, which is pretty unlikely. And even then, a dead candidate has won before! An unnecessary risk to be sure, but a very small one. The RBG nonsense was just nuts, gambling an old woman wouldn't die any time in the next four years doesn't even compare.
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Oct 6, 2023 01:07
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This project 2025 stuff sounds like a conspiracy theory to me because I can't reconcile the hysteria in the press with the lackadaisical attitude of those actually in power. If the next Republican is going to use the tools of the surveillance and carceral state to establish a dictatorship, why did Democrats reauthorize the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act under Trump and expand his surveillance powers, that doesn't sound like the actions of people who believe he's a threat to the Republic. If it's because they only realized the danger after Jan 6, why didn't they repeal it when they had full control of they government. Or, thanks to Tuberville, important military posts are vacant, ready for Trump to fill with cronies if he gets elected. This is an extremely dangerous thing to allow if Trump is planning to establish a military dictatorship, yet they all they do is scold Tuberville a bit and then let him do what he wants instead of fixing the stupid senate rule he is abusing. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Nov 18, 2023 |
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Nov 18, 2023 16:08
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Yeah but it's odd that the people trying to scare us about it don't even act like they believe it when they go back to work. I guess they could all just be Jar Jar Binks authorizing the clone army, but it doesn't seem worthwhile to worry myself over it if the people in power are going to hand every president the tools to become a dictator anyway. The presidency is going to change parties eventually
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Nov 18, 2023 16:44
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skeleton warrior posted:You mean why aren't they doing the thing they're actually doing? Oh I hadn't heard about that yet, it's about time. Will be interesting to see if they get a filibuster proof majority on that after they get back from their vacations.
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Nov 18, 2023 16:59
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Bodyholes posted:https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/16/politics/biden-federal-workforce-gop/index.html Doing some easily reversed executive action at the last minute in the final year of his presidency sounds lackadaisical to me, the attempted coup was almost three years ago, plus Trump was apparently being authoritarian for four years and according to Democrats was a Russian plant and they still expanded his domestic spying powers, fully supported the drone program and the power of the executive to carry out assassinations without judicial oversight, they keep pumping more funding to the reactionary police departments that are supposedly going to be Trump's footsoldiers putting down liberal resistance, etc. So idk still seems like they either don't take it seriously themselves or are complicit because I can't reconcile the contradictions between their behavior and the project 2025 conspiracy theory. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 17:24
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Of course, I'm also old enough to remember the same liberal conspiracy theories about Bush and then when 2008 came along he just quietly shuffled off and let a guy named Barack Obama get inaugurated, so that might be why I'm more skeptical hearing it the second time around, for those who are experiencing it for the first time it's always more exciting. quote:
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Nov 20, 2023 18:06
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Misunderstood posted:I don't feel like saying "the Democrats appropriated the equivalent of about 1% of national police funding for explicitly mandated training purposes, alongside resources for crime prevention and the criminal justice system" every time somebody says something like this, so I guess I am just going to have to accept that people are going to keep saying this, and that people are going to keep taking the incorrect conclusion from it that Democrats are just out there buying Abrams tanks for every sheriff in the heartland. This time, I'll bother pointing out that it's a really blatant false equivalence to say Republicans and Democrats are equal on policing issues. I mean the cops were just pepper-spraying and attacking people protesting the slaughter in Gaza (at the encouragement of the DNC), doesn't seem like they are doing much to prevent suppression of protests against a hypothetical Trump coup.
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Nov 20, 2023 18:33
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Misunderstood posted:Given that we are talking about, again, about a 1% funding boost, don't you think that's immaterial to the ability of police to carry out Trump's wishes, or to Trump's ability to command them under his limited authority when dealing with local officials? Do you think that the capacity of police to be used as a paramilitary force would be in any way diminished if Biden hadn't passed his dumb "Democrats don't hate cops, honest, please vote for us!" bills? No offense but you seem to have trouble connecting your arguments to what you want to prove. Misunderstood posted:
So this just gets back to what I said about there being no reason to stay up at night worrying. If Democrats have to fund cops more and give up on police reform in order to win, even if that means Republicans will have the tools to end democracy if Dems lose, then dictatorship is coming either way. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 18:42
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Misunderstood posted:This is a bizarre assertion, I'm sorry. Your inability to explain your position in a comprehensible way is not my failing. Your argument is, if I'm not misunderstanding, that holding police funding level does nothing to prevent a strongman from exploiting local police power in enacting his agenda. So, if the federal Democrats were really worried about a second Trump term, what is the action they would have taken regarding police funding - which they do not control - that would have demonstrated that concern? Pass legislation to reform the police at a federal level, use the DoJ to investigate and imprison cops for all the brutality and civil rights violations committed in 2020 instead of mostly ignoring it, especially defund the police and if necessary completely rebuild them at the state and city level in places where they have control. Literally anything other than allow them to remain white supremacist death squads?? Misunderstood posted:I think you just want permission to not care if Democrats don't win the election and you're not going to get it from a lot of people, not with this argument. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 18:53
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Misunderstood posted:On some level you are ignoring things that the DOJ has actually done, again, because you are probably mostly reading sources that are laser-focused on ways Dems are "failing the left." Did you even know about the consent decrees? I'm sure they've done some things, the question once again isn't "have they done anything it all" it's "are their actions commensurate with the danger they are promoting with the project 2025 conspiracy" Like, if you believe it's a dire end-of-democracy event coming as early as 2025, the usual stuff about how we should be satisfied with incrementalism doesn't apply because there's no time for that.
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Nov 20, 2023 18:57
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Misunderstood posted:I would suggest that in extending the PATRIOT act provisions Democrats were mostly acting out of concern for... you know, national security? Just because it's CW among a certain percentage of the population that it's all just bullshit made up to oppress us, most of the people passing these laws genuinely do believe they are necessary to prevent terrorism, or at least that voters perceive them as such and would punish them for opposing them. "The President is dangerous and doesn't care about the country or Constitution" is not really a problem where the proper response is "eliminate our intelligence capabilities so he can't use them I mean, what's more important, protecting civil liberties against the guy who is supposedly going to become a dictator, or wiretapping mosques... E: skeleton warrior posted:So the answer is “Democrats should do incredibly unpopular things that will destroy them in elections like cutting police funding because that will prevent Trump abuses when he inevitably gets re-elected due to Democrats doing incredibly unpopular things?” That seems terribly stupid, based on some weird idea that if we cut national funding for police budgets by 5 or 10 percent that will somehow make a coup inevitably fail If it's so dire that they can't do much to secure the government in the event of a Republican victory or else Republicans will win faster then, once again, why worry. A Republican will win the presidency eventually, it's just a matter of time. It just does not make a lot of sense to me personally to worry myself over this hypothetical dictatorship reality VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 19:13
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skeleton warrior posted:Except a) you’re literally the only person in this argument stating that a cut to federal police funding is making a decisive difference in whether a coup succeeds or not, and you’re making that argument specifically to downplay the idea that Democrats are serious about preventing a coup; and b) you’ve been provided plenty of evidence of other ways that the Biden administration is attempting to fight a potential future coup and you are hand waving that away with “but if they don’t cut federal police funding they can’t possibly succeed so I refuse to believe they’re taking it seriously” No I am not stating that "a cut to federal police funding is making a decisive difference", I listed several ways that their actions contradict their claims to believe that Trump will establish a dictatorship, giving up on police reform is only one, and the list wasn't even exhaustive. You're hyperfocusing on one example and trying to knock it down, as though there aren't a bunch of other problems. You're missing the forest for the trees. And I already explained why I don't think the stuff you guys brought up is proof they're taking it seriously. One is executive action that can be undone by the next president just as easily, the other isn't even something they've done yet...they advanced a rule in a senate committee, no date for a vote or indication they will get enough Republican support to overcome a filibuster, and even if they do it only fixes one issue. The disconnect between the hysteria that a coup is coming next year, and the same old scolding that I should appreciate that Democrats aren't doing literally nothing is so jarring to me. This isn't a situation where incrementalism is enough, you're telling me the next time Republicans win the White House they're going to coup the government and end democracy, well okay if I accept that then they should be all hands on deck putting checks on the executive and formalizing legal protections for civil rights and opposition. There's no partial credit for doing 10% of stopping a coup. Bodyholes posted:Democrats' actions should not be taken as a good gauge for how dangerous conservative plans are. Just a sign of how feckless and weak they are. Yeah it is always possible that conservatives are planning a dictatorship and the opposition party is unable/unwilling to use their time in power to prevent it, but I wouldn't worry myself over that. Democrats can't win every presidential election for the rest of our lives, so if you're right that never losing is the Dems' only hope, then it's like worrying there's an asteroid on its way to hit earth. It's coming no matter how much or little I worry. But I admit, I'm also kinda jaded having been around the block enough times to hear it every election: one team says the other team will become dictators if they win. Republicans said it about Obama, Democrats said it about W, Republicans said it about Clinton, Democratic-Republicans said it about Federalists. Adams is a monarchist who will crown himself king. Jefferson is an infidel who will ban the Bible. It's exciting the first time, but after several elections you start to see the manipulation for what it is and it becomes old hat.
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Nov 21, 2023 14:43
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skeleton warrior posted:lol, one side put forward legal arguments that states could ignore elections in naming a president, and when that didn't work they staged a coup, and now they're attempting to elect the coup leader who is calling his enemies vermin who need to be eliminated, but both sides bad so why bother choosing? I was very specific that fears of Trump ending democracy and ushering in "a second/forever term" are...unlikely and gave my reasons why. That is a very different conversation from whether Trump is a bad president or whether he tried to pull a Bush and steal a single election or whether Democrats are or are not just as bad etc
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Nov 21, 2023 15:53
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Riptor posted:I don't see how it hurts and to the extent that more people know his name outside of California I do think it helps Furthermore it's probably better than literally anything else he does with his time. Every minute on Fox News squabbling with another who-cares governor is a minute he isn't asking cops to please beat up more homeless people for fouling the view on his drive to work.
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Dec 5, 2023 02:19
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If I were her I'd stay in until Trump gets 50% of the delegates just in case he dies or something. There's no chance of him offering her anything to drop out because she's no threat, so the only reason for her to drop out and endorse him is if she decides to pivot to a Senate run or something but that'd be a long shot anyway because she's been out of politics for so long except for this losing run.
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Jan 24, 2024 03:38
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:
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Jan 24, 2024 16:15
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Why are the Kochs even spending money to defeat Trump they basically agree with him on everything? Do they just think he's going to lose or would they actually prefer Biden
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Feb 27, 2024 22:56
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Phlegmish posted:Agreed. Winner takes all is one thing, but I never quite understood why the US uses electoral districts (mostly corresponding to states) for straightforward presidential elections to begin with. There's absolutely no reason, and it just leads to these absurd outcomes where someone can be elected president despite trailing his competitor by millions of votes. vote by (as it turned out) 3/5ths of the number of slaves. It has persisted because the constitution was deliberately made quite difficult to change, and states that benefit from the EC system have their influence over constitutional amendments increased as well, also it almost never matters so people against the system don't have much motivation for the fight.
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Feb 27, 2024 23:01
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Ahhh right tariffs that makes sense
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Feb 27, 2024 23:05
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