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US Politics: Kill (the) Bill


Kalbear

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5 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Was there more than one post with a link? Two maybe? So yeah, whole thread.

It's a good point @Commodore is making - which is that everyone should be especially careful about unsourced information that backs up your worldview. These are the ones that we should be MOST critical of and most aware of. 

As an example, this got spread around my feed quite a bit recently. It's a very long thread with some interesting connections, but the idea that Chris Steele WILL BE TESTIFYING AGAINST TRUMP is entirely hearsay and conjecture. Could it happen? Sure, it could, but stating it as fact instead of conjecture makes it basically just someone's hopes and dreams combined with InfoWars-like sensationalism. 

 

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Just now, Kalbear said:

It's a good point @Commodore is making - which is that everyone should be especially careful about unsourced information that backs up your worldview. These are the ones that we should be MOST critical of and most aware of. 

Very true. I can get behind that. That Steele thread makes some really broad assumptions.

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4 hours ago, Inigima said:

Dmc, I'm interested to know why you would think Trump isn't immune from prosecution. He isn't getting smacked down by the Republicans in Congress for any of the shit he's doing, including his conflicts of interest. He's barely getting hit over the Russia stuff, even.

Whether a sitting president can be criminally prosecuted is, constitutionally, an unsettled manner.  However, since Watergate, the ability of other entities to investigate the administration and eventually bring articles of impeachment to Congress have been clarified.  The FBI is probing potential Russia collusion and Sessions now has no ability to affect that process.  Considering what has already been publicly reported by Comey, I see no reason to think Trump is more immune than any president since Nixon - at least any president that has copartisans controlling each chamber of Congress.

4 hours ago, Fez said:

If Republicans decide to just explode the deficit, I think they'll come to an agreement. There aren't many of them that care about the deficit when it comes to their priorities; and, while there will be some heartburn over how that'll mean the cuts are only temporary, 10 years is a long time to have an impact. Also, they'll probably convince themselves they can extend the cuts when the time comes, at least some of them.

If they try make the cuts permanent by keeping things revenue neutral though (or they don't do that, but do try to come up with cuts to keep the deficit in line), I think they will dramatically fail. Taxes are just as complicated an issue as health care, and most Republicans don't have any policy thoughts beyond "make the taxes lower."

I agree.  And - as I mentioned earlier - the failure of the AHCA complicates the ability to make tax reform revenue neutral because they were relying on all those Medicaid cuts.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

He gets paid. He gets friends paid.

Of course, it's that simple.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Because he wanted it done with one way or another so that he could move to things he cares about and makes him money.

His calculus is 'does this benefit me and my family'. If you frame things in this theory of mind a lot more of the decisions make sense.

This does not explain, in any way, why he changed from demanding a vote to pulling said vote in a matter of hours.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

The courts can decide, possibly, but they cannot enforce.

Right, that was a misstatement on my part.  Still doesn't change the fact the courts undoubtedly would rule against such actions if they were ever undertaken, and the administration clearly abided by the courts' ruling IRT the muslim ban.  I fail to see how this would be any different.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Again, to be really specific, AHCA failed because it was done by a POTUS who didn't care about that specifically with a faction of congress that didn't care about that specifically in a way that was wildly unpopular - and it still didn't fail by large margins. Things that are not the AHCA will have a much higher success rate. 

The notion the HFC which ran on replacing the ACA, and a president that did the same - and engaged in more active lobbying trying to cajole MCs to his side in one week than Obama arguably did in an entire term - "didn't care about that specifically" lacks credibility.  Obviously its lack of popularity is related to its abandonment, but its also related to the ability of this regime to craft and sell appealing legislation.

And which things specifically?  Tax cuts, sure, but beyond that?  Immigration or free trade that will cut up the Republican caucus more drastically than the AHCA?

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Also, 'other than immigration and warmaking' is a pretty awesome 'other than that, how was the play Mrs Lincoln' stage. You can also add 'environmental issues, education, policing and enforcement, civil rights enforcement, corporation enforcement and regulation, DEA laws, privacy laws, rights of consumers for their information' to that list.

I agree it is a pretty awesome "other than."  But, it's also no different than any other president.  Why it's supposed to end democracy now and not when Bush got us into Iraq or FDR interned the Japanese is beyond me.

As for the other stuff - listen.  I'm not going to sit here and pretend the president can't influence a host of policy change through management of agencies; nor that the bureaucracy itself cannot considerably change policy.  The theme of my dissertation literally is the bureaucracy's underestimated influence in policymaking.  But you are seizing upon this ability which is employed by every president - particularly upon taking office and when there is a party change - and equating it with the end of democracy.  

Nixon, Reagan, Dubya, they all tried to "decimate the administrative state," or whatever it was Bannon said.  And they were successful in some areas - most certainly in the short term and even in some ways the long term.  However, there are still internal as well as external constraints on the president's ability to control, or destroy, agencies.  When you cite Trump's ability to control the administrative state as the main way in which he is going to abolish functional democracy, you are implying the Trump administration is going to transcend the common agency problem that has been at the heart of competition over policymaking since the rise of the administrative state.  That is, simply put, silly.

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

That is another way the end of functional democracy is done - a POTUS with a net positive disapproval rate is not removed from office after committing a crime because a congress with no fear on being unelected views that as more costly than going the other way. 

I'm unclear as to how this is different than any other time when the president has enjoyed unified government over the past half century.  The incumbency advantage isn't new.

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1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

This does not explain, in any way, why he changed from demanding a vote to pulling said vote in a matter of hours.

I didn't try to. I explained why he wanted a vote on it quickly and wanted it dealt with quickly. Clearly Ryan convinced him it was in his best interest to not do the vote, probably because it would have been personally embarrassing to Trump. That's conjecture, but again - what have you seen from this presidency so far that indicates political calculus has much to do with any decisions? How does this explain his calculus for, say, the Muslim ban or the wiretapping accusations?

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

Right, that was a misstatement on my part.  Still doesn't change the fact the courts undoubtedly would rule against such actions if they were ever undertaken, and the administration clearly abided by the courts' ruling IRT the muslim ban.  I fail to see how this would be any different.

The administration didn't actually abide by the court's ruling for quite a while, and for at least a week there were fairly harsh standoffs at airports between the DHS and congress. 

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

The notion the HFC which ran on replacing the ACA, and a president that did the same - and engaged in more active lobbying trying to cajole MCs to his side in one week than Obama arguably did in an entire term - "didn't care about that specifically" lacks credibility.  Obviously its lack of popularity is related to its abandonment, but its also related to the ability of this regime to craft and sell appealing legislation.

Trump never had a specific policy goal on repealing and replacing ACA. His own aides lamented he didn't take it seriously. He could never explain what any of the bills did. How does this lack credibility? The HFC cared very deeply, but Trump did not, and Republicans as a whole have not cared about anything other than repeal. And it's particularly difficult to see how they cared about it beyond using it to get elected. The evidence is pretty strong - now that they had a chance to repeal it, an actual chance, they fail almost immediately and then give up?

Come on, the evidence is quite reasonably in the direction of 'they were using this for political gain only'. 

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

And which things specifically?  Tax cuts, sure, but beyond that?  Immigration or free trade that will cut up the Republican caucus more drastically than the AHCA?

Tax cuts are a kind of big deal. War is another one that congress will likely approve given ISIS. Privacy rights already got voted on and will continue to erode. The blue law stuff we already saw. Massive repeal of environmental restrictions, Repeal of corporate restrictions. All of these are almost 100% universally supported by Republicans. 

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

I agree it is a pretty awesome "other than."  But, it's also no different than any other president.  Why it's supposed to end democracy now and not when Bush got us into Iraq or FDR interned the Japanese is beyond me.

Yes, and I've stated this. It is not any different than any other president; the difference is that this president cares very little about popularity of anyone other than his supporters, his supporters show no sign of defecting, and his party only cares about being elected. The difference is that this + gerrymandering + partisan politics makes that lack of checks on the executive branch dangerous. It was very dangerous with Obama too, mind you. I stated that as well. Trump is the first president that puts that power in the hands of someone who is inherently selfish. 

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

As for the other stuff - listen.  I'm not going to sit here and pretend the president can't influence a host of policy change through management of agencies; nor that the bureaucracy itself cannot considerably change policy.  The theme of my dissertation literally is the bureaucracy's underestimated influence in policymaking.  But you are seizing upon this ability which is employed by every president - particularly upon taking office and when there is a party change - and equating it with the end of democracy.  

I am combining that power with the massive inability to affect change in the legislative elections and combining it with people's viewpoint that their party is their identity. Trump is simply the first president that doesn't care about anything other than Trump. 

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

Nixon, Reagan, Dubya, they all tried to "decimate the administrative state," or whatever it was Bannon said.  And they were successful in some areas - most certainly in the short term and even in some ways the long term.  However, there are still internal as well as external constraints on the president's ability to control, or destroy, agencies.  When you cite Trump's ability to control the administrative state as the main way in which he is going to abolish functional democracy, you are implying the Trump administration is going to transcend the common agency problem that has been at the heart of competition over policymaking since the rise of the administrative state.  That is, simply put, silly.

One way Trump is different is simply not appointing anyone to hundreds of positions. That is something quite new, and appears so far to be fairly effective at starving the administrative beast.

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

I'm unclear as to how this is different than any other time when the president has enjoyed unified government over the past half century.  The incumbency advantage isn't new.

The incumbency advantage has consistently been united with a strong push against said incumbency if (perceived) that government went too far. Until 2010, when gerrymandering drew up districts that virtually guarantee a house advantage for the next 14 years for Republicans, combined with them controlling state and local elections for similar reasons. The previous threat was that the incumbent party couldn't do things that were too unpopular for fear of losing future elections. 

But that isn't the case now. Now, between gerrymandering and continued ideological drift away from the center and no real ability or value in compromise (thanks for getting rid of those pork barrel projects guys), most voters will never vote for someone outside of their chosen party. The biggest threat to congressional members like the HFC and others is being primaried out. This was what Trump threatened as well, and that was his most serious threat to muster. When he has a 90% approval rate from heavy conservatives - the ones who vote in primaries - this is by far the most worrisome thing to those members. And that 90% hasn't dropped a smidgen. 

There are a lot of things that combine my worry here and I fear I'm not explaining it well, but it isn't just Trump. It's Trump + weak party that checks their own members + gerrymandering + partisanship + a general shift of power to the executive branch + an inability of media to inform in a non-partisan way + open bribery from foreign agents + open espionage used to influence elections. It's not just any one thing.

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12 minutes ago, Stannis is the man....nis said:

Hahahahahahaha Trump gallup today: 36/57 oh my god he is hitting Bush after the market crashed #'s within 100 days

I'm still holding my breath on the upcoming House special elections:

April 11- Kansas 4th

April 18- Georgia 6th

May 25- Montana AL

June 6- California 34th

June 20- South Carolina 5th

Not all of those are winnable races, but even having a much smaller margin than usual in the non-winnable ones would be a good sign. And Georgia 6th is the kind of district Democrats need to pick-up to have a shot at a majority again. All the bad Trump poll numbers in the world don't mean much if it doesn't translate into electoral wins. I've mentioned some encouraging state legislature special elections the past couple months, but Congress is the real test case for if Trump is sinking the GOP.

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45 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's a good point @Commodore is making - which is that everyone should be especially careful about unsourced information that backs up your worldview. These are the ones that we should be MOST critical of and most aware of. 

As an example, this got spread around my feed quite a bit recently. It's a very long thread with some interesting 

If the point was be on guard for sensational claims and conspiracy theories, I can get behind that.

I do not wish the left to descend into the utter madness that conservatives have descended into. We should remain vigilant.

Besides, there is plenty to criticize Trump and conservatives on, without believing in dubious claims or stories. Those things are just a distraction from the real issues.

But, I do not think that was Commodore's real point.

I think his real point was something more like, "you idiots fell for that story."

I went back several pages to find the link to that story. After a cursory review of posts that followed, I did not see any poster affirming that story.

Maybe Commodore views silence as being an affirmation by us all that the story was true. But, I do not think so. Me personally, given the sensational nature of the story, I was very skeptical of it. Without further credible corroboration of it, I would not represent something like that as being true. Given what I know, I'd rate the story as being utter bullshit.

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3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I didn't try to. I explained why he wanted a vote on it quickly and wanted it dealt with quickly. Clearly Ryan convinced him it was in his best interest to not do the vote, probably because it would have been personally embarrassing to Trump. That's conjecture, but again - what have you seen from this presidency so far that indicates political calculus has much to do with any decisions? How does this explain his calculus for, say, the Muslim ban or the wiretapping accusations?

Avoiding personal embarrassment is a political calculus.  The Muslim ban is very easily explained - it was what he promised to do.  Ask any Trump supporter and he will tell you that was him "doin what he said."  The wiretapping accusations were his haphazard attempt to distract from the Russia investigation/allegations.  All decisions were motivated by political considerations.

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The administration didn't actually abide by the court's ruling for quite a while, and for at least a week there were fairly harsh standoffs at airports between the DHS and congress. 

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But they ultimately did.  Even rewrote the entire order in an effort to get it through the courts (which it most likely will eventually).

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Trump never had a specific policy goal on repealing and replacing ACA. His own aides lamented he didn't take it seriously. He could never explain what any of the bills did. How does this lack credibility?

Because you're conflating Trump's incompetence on policy details - which is a large part of my argument - with his lack of caring.  If he didn't care, why would he bother lobbying the HFC multiple times, or threaten their jobs, or have Bannon attempt to order them to vote on it?

10 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And it's particularly difficult to see how they cared about it beyond using it to get elected. The evidence is pretty strong - now that they had a chance to repeal it, an actual chance, they fail almost immediately and then give up?

Come on, the evidence is quite reasonably in the direction of 'they were using this for political gain only'. 

I agree most only cared about it to get elected - but of course I personally think the vast majority of office-holders only care about getting elected.  And repealing and replacing after running on it for six years was important to many in order to get reelected.  No GOP legislature will honestly tell you the failure did not hurt them politically.  They've abandoned it because there's quite clearly no pathway to enactment.  I wish Clinton recognized this and moved on as quickly.

16 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Tax cuts are a kind of big deal. War is another one that congress will likely approve given ISIS. Privacy rights already got voted on and will continue to erode. The blue law stuff we already saw. Massive repeal of environmental restrictions, Repeal of corporate restrictions. All of these are almost 100% universally supported by Republicans. 

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Tax cuts are a big deal...and passed by virtually every Republican president.  Same goes for the other stuff - you're still conflating a conservative policy agenda with the end of democracy.

18 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I am combining that power with the massive inability to affect change in the legislative elections and combining it with people's viewpoint that their party is their identity. Trump is simply the first president that doesn't care about anything other than Trump. 

I do not see how any of this addresses the point about how every president uses the bureaucracy to institute policy change and is not the same as the end of democracy.  Honestly I'm not even sure what you're trying to say in the first sentence.

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

One way Trump is different is simply not appointing anyone to hundreds of positions. That is something quite new, and appears so far to be fairly effective at starving the administrative beast.

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Agreed!  That is new - and a pretty innovative technique.  So...the difference between Trump and other presidents that will lead to the end of functioning democracy is he's not hiring people?

23 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The previous threat was that the incumbent party couldn't do things that were too unpopular for fear of losing future elections. 

But that isn't the case now.

The 2010 census certainly gave the GOP an advantage in fortifying their incumbency...advantage, but it did not change the lack of fear of losing future elections in the least because the incumbency advantage has consistently been in the 80s in the Senate and the 90s in the House since the 1960s.

26 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The biggest threat to congressional members like the HFC and others is being primaried out. This was what Trump threatened as well, and that was his most serious threat to muster. When he has a 90% approval rate from heavy conservatives - the ones who vote in primaries - this is by far the most worrisome thing to those members. And that 90% hasn't dropped a smidgen. 

I agree with this - Trump's popularity w/GOP voters links loyalty towards him with the recent increased potential of GOP members getting primaried.  That is why he can rely upon solid intraparty support even with his approval numbers in the high 30s.  It does give him more slack than previous presidents.

29 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

an inability of media to inform in a non-partisan way + open bribery from foreign agents + open espionage used to influence elections

These are the only three variables you mentioned that I think are unique to the Trump presidency, or increasing in a marked way.  And I agree wholeheartedly they are all very concerning.  I just don't think they portend the end of functional democracy, and it's hyperbolic to say so - especially after we just saw the inability of Trump/GOP to even begin the legislative process on their first swing at bat.

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1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

These are the only three variables you mentioned that I think are unique to the Trump presidency, or increasing in a marked way.  And I agree wholeheartedly they are all very concerning.  I just don't think they portend the end of functional democracy, and it's hyperbolic to say so - especially after we just saw the inability of Trump/GOP to even begin the legislative process on their first swing at bat.

And I disagree. But at least you see where I am coming from, now.

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25 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Agreed!  That is new - and a pretty innovative technique.  So...the difference between Trump and other presidents that will lead to the end of functioning democracy is he's not hiring people?

To be fair this could potentially undermine your "administrative lifer who in reality runs that department" defense. If those people aren't on staff they can't gum up the works or keep the department running as it was meant to .

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1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

I do - but I still think the way you frame it is way too chicken little :) 

People have been saying that for a few months now, and I'd love to be proven wrong about it. The AHCA failure was the first real misstep I've seen. It doesn't change the David Frum autocracy vision, because that vision isn't built on effective legislation at all save the populist kind. And if anything, this kind of defeat lends itself to Trump focusing instead on broad popular value and gimmies. 

I still think that Trump will be elected again in 4 years time. I still think that congress isn't going to change parties. I still think that corporations are going to toe the line with Trump. I still think that civil rights, economic rights, environmental values, voter rights, LGBT rights are all going to be heavily curtailed or simply unenforced, just like the individual mandate is. And I think this will be done despite him being wildly unpopular because a combination of voter restriction, apathy, likely foreign war and foreign meddling will effectively create a situation of no visibly good choice, so people will just not turn out or will vote for Trump again. And then vote for Pence. 

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5 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

To be fair this could potentially undermine your "administrative lifer who in reality runs that department" defense. If those people aren't on staff they can't gum up the works or keep the department running as it was meant to .

Well, basically what he's doing in this case is not hiring people as opposed to filling those positions with political appointees - what is known as politicization.  So, no, not really.

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

*snip*

It's gotta be pretty depressing to think this when you're as engaged in politics as you clearly are.  Hope you have something else you root for.  Go...Bears!? 

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14 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

It's gotta be pretty depressing to think this when you're as engaged in politics as you clearly are.  Hope you have something else you root for.  Go...Bears!? 

It is depressing, but much like my sports interests I try and take a pragmatic viewpoint of things and also try and work towards making them better when I can. This has gotten me a lot more involved in politics than I had been, and I've been attempting to boost my viewpoint - by joining the citizen's group on investigative oversight with the police, by reaching out to local media and my US senator to talk with her and others about my son. 

But it's also the case that we've been looking at leaving the country quite seriously. 

The most optimistic case that I've seen is one that you repeated, which is that the US has been very resilient to being affected by issues and crises in the past and has bounced back. We had Nixon, but that didn't kill us. We had Iran/Contra too, and Lewinsky. The US still remained something like a functional democracy. Where I have a problem with that is that using the past to predict the future only works if other things remain constant, and many things so far have not. The other problem is that it encourages complacency; when you simply believe that everything will be fine, it gives people reason to relax.

And right now I do not believe that we should be relaxed.

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Interesting. Maybe relevant to healthcare wars:

http://angrybearblog.com/2017/03/do-patents-lead-to-economic-growth.html

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Recently I discussed a paper by David Autor, David Dorn, Gordon Hanson, Gary P. Pisano and Pian Shu. The paper noted that as competition from China increased, innovation by US firms, measured by patent output, decreased. I believe the result, but started to wonder… are patents a good measure of innovation? Do patents drive economic growth?

I don’t know how to measure innovation, but I can look at the relationship between patents and economic growth. We being by looking at patents per capita. I found patent data going back to 1840, and population to 1850.  The graph below shows patents per capita beginning in 1850. (All data sources provided at the end of this post.)

 

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What’s going on?  Well, obviously, if there is no protection for developing intellectual capital, nobody is going to put much effort into creating that capital. On the other hand, protecting intellectual capital too well can stifle economic growth. For one, it requires spending an awful lot on on attorneys. For another, it forecloses on a lot of areas of potentially fruitful research by a lot of people who are worried about stepping into a mine field potentially defined by other people’s patents.

I think it's worthwhile to really look at this and ask if we are really at our optimal level of patent protection.

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On 3/26/2017 at 10:12 AM, Trebla said:

After the non-vote, I was somewhat surprised that Trump didn't go after the the GOP and instead had the discipline to toe the party line and just blame the Dems. Yeah, that discipline didn't last long.

Earlier he posted:

And why did he post that? Well, she opened her show with a call for Paul Ryan to step down.

I guess Paul Ryan is #1 on Bannon's Shit List.

Are we just going to ignore that he clearly colluded with Fox News on this.  Goddamn that's sketchy.

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58 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It is depressing, but much like my sports interests I try and take a pragmatic viewpoint of things

Well, I find describing your perspective - which is predicated on America's descent into authoritarianism - as pragmatic is laughable, but to each their own.

59 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

This has gotten me a lot more involved in politics than I had been, and I've been attempting to boost my viewpoint - by joining the citizen's group on investigative oversight with the police, by reaching out to local media and my US senator to talk with her and others about my son. 

Good for you!  Seriously.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

The other problem is that it encourages complacency; when you simply believe that everything will be fine, it gives people reason to relax.

See, the problem I have is when you start describing our political system as an oligarchy, or frame things in a way that grants little hope for changing a state of affairs that is increasingly undemocratic, this only serves to bolster people's cynicism and apathy towards participation in government.  I have found encouraging my students to have an appreciation for the institutions - if not the actors therein - and the republican design that has been resilient in this country for 220 years is the best way to foster participation and activism.  But, hey, people are motivated differently.

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