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U.S. Politics: Can't Stand It, I Know Ya Planned It, Gotta Set It Straight this Morongate


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5 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

Sorry I missed earlier discussion of the vote suppression numbers -- I cannot keep up with this thread, though I try to skim the previous few pages before I post.

Mostly my comment was more about the frustration the the Democratic Party hasn't fought hard enough against disenfranchisement of their voters. It drives me batty that this party keeps letting the Republican bully-brats take their lunch. And I'm pissed that the media narrative has been about lack of enthusiasm for Clinton -- which I don't doubt, but holy shit can none of those cocktail party journalists connect the fucking dots?

I am pretty pessimistic in general. Not just for our political system, but our culture, the ugly and self-destructive phenomenon of American exceptionalism, and the general benightedness of humans in general. My view of the future has turned dark. I hate the idea of my son growing up in the notably crueller and shittier world that Trump is steering us into.

I don't know exactly how it happened, and it certainly predates Trump, but somehow conservatives were able to firmly attach thier brand to the idea of patriotism at the exclusion of liberal Americans.  To be a real American patriot is to be a conservative American, this is a really common theme.  

When the face of American conservatism is George W Bush that's a pretty rough lot - but we can recover because for all his faults Bush was not interested in a divided America, when it's Trump this phenomenon is a fucking disaster.  Since at least the Obama administration there are quite a number of conservatives absolutely convinced that not only are they the true patriots but that liberals actively hate America, Obama the ringleader of course.  

If the actual conservative leader is a responsible adult that might not amount to much outside talk radio nonsense, but when it's Trump he uses that feeling of monopolized patriotism as a wedge to drive people farther apart, and he knows damn well he can go pretty far down the rabbit hole without losing an ounce of support.  In the minds of many, whatever he does, he's just finally pushing back against those liberal America-haters and it's about damned time.  

I don't know how long the Trump experiment will last.  I hope to Christ not past 2020, but there is zero doubt that this country will be much worse in so many ways than what he inherited.  I remember in 2008 thinking Obama was probably going to be the most historically significant presidency of my lifetime as a positive historical landmark and all the optimism he brought to the table.

 But now I'm thinking that the most historic presidency in my lifetime could very well be Trump's  and for the exact opposite reasons - the division, lies, the impulsiveness, the lack of compassion, the inability to apologize or take responsibility, the incredible narcissism, disregard for social norms, inability to handle criticism, threatening global posture, and downright childish antics.  The guy is dangerous in so many ways.  He's the only president who I've ever seriously thought that the worst case scenario is that this guy gets us all killed, that's where the bar is on Trump and I can't recall a lower one.

If he had sloughed off 75% of his followers by now I'd be less concerned, but since he hasn't I can only conclude that even if we survive Trumps term(s) the country is still more than ripe for the next demagogue to take up where he left off.  So yea, my outlook for the future of this country is pretty bleak as well.  Though it's not too late for a positive turnaround, we need an about-face... and soon.

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1 hour ago, S John said:

If he had sloughed off 75% of his followers by now I'd be less concerned, but since he hasn't I can only conclude that even if we survive Trumps term(s) the country is still more than ripe for the next demagogue to take up where he left off.

That's an unrealistic standard.  Good news is, if he gets down to 75% support from his voters, things will not look good for him or the GOP.

I study the presidency, and I don't know what "historic" presidency means.  The only one since FDR you could argue was not necessarily "historic" in one way or another is perhaps Bush I.

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One thing to remember re:gerrymandering is that it can only happen once every 10 years, and a lot of things change in 10 years. People die, other people come of age, some stop voting due to lack of political engagement, others start voting, some switch parties, and finally, a lot of people simply move to other districts or other states.

A district which was carefully gerrymandered in 2010 to produce a 60% Republican majority might be far more vulnerable in 2018 or 2020 for all these reasons, because its effects become less powerful over time. This is why the attitude "the districts are gerrymandered, our voters are disenfranchised, it's not fair, waaaaah", really isn't helpful.

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21 minutes ago, Gorn said:

This is why the attitude "the districts are gerrymandered, our voters are disenfranchised, it's not fair, waaaaah", really isn't helpful.

Neither is putting "waaah" at the end of a sentence to ridicule people describing a very real problem that makes it questionable whether the USA is truly a democracy today, and certainly makes it questionable whether it'll continue to be, in practice. The attitude "the districts might magically sort themselves out within a 10-year span to counter the careful engineering of the Republican party" isn't really helpful either.

That said. some counter-engineering might be worth looking into. I hear there are a lot of Puerto Ricans in need of a new, perhaps purple, district to live in.

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42 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

Neither is putting "waaah" at the end of a sentence to ridicule people describing a very real problem that makes it questionable whether the USA is truly a democracy today, and certainly makes it questionable whether it'll continue to be, in practice. The attitude "the districts might magically sort themselves out within a 10-year span to counter the careful engineering of the Republican party" isn't really helpful either.

That said. some counter-engineering might be worth looking into. I hear there are a lot of Puerto Ricans in need of a new, perhaps purple, district to live in.

Anyone who uses it as an excuse for not voting, or generally not engaging in the political process, deserves to be ridiculed. I might be overly harsh and bitter because I see too many people with this mindset in my everyday life.

No.1 goal should be getting as many like-minded people to the polls on election day, regardless of the state or district they live in. Once your party is in a position of power, you can worry about changing the rules.

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1 hour ago, Gorn said:

Anyone who uses it as an excuse for not voting, or generally not engaging in the political process, deserves to be ridiculed. I might be overly harsh and bitter because I see too many people with this mindset in my everyday life.

No.1 goal should be getting as many like-minded people to the polls on election day, regardless of the state or district they live in. Once your party is in a position of power, you can worry about changing the rules.

Uhm, no. That is now how it works. It's a huge problem and it often DOES make it so that people's opinions lack the impact it does. You might believe they deserve it and that is completely your right as a human being.

You would also be very wrong to do so, but it's your right.

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9 hours ago, kairparavel said:

Gillespie appears to be running on the sole platform of 'MS-13 is here to rape and murder your family because of sanctuary cities'. How do you counter that in an exciting and energized way? Gillespie's ads grate on my nerves. 

Maybe tell the people your health care plan? 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrat-northam-leads-republican-gillespie-in-race-for-virginia-governor/2017/10/04/a62425e6-a78e-11e7-b3aa-c0e2e1d41e38_story.html
 

That campaign is so insufferable and inflammatory.  I already know that there is zero chance in hell I'd vote for the Republican candidate, but if there was a chance I was on a fence, that campaign would have me voting Democrat so fast...

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12 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Uhm, no. That is now how it works. It's a huge problem and it often DOES make it so that people's opinions lack the impact it does. You might believe they deserve it and that is completely your right as a human being.

You would also be very wrong to do so, but it's your right.

Sorry, I kind of agree with @Gorn.  Not that anybody deserves to be ridiculed, can't get behind that, nor any compulsory voting type thing.  However, if you're able to identify and describe the problem of gerrymandering, in all likelihood you are more than capable of overcoming any voter suppression effort, and thus you relinquish any highground in complaining about the system if you refuse to participate in it.

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Pretty hard for non Americans to do anything though, we just get to watch (and get dragged into any future wars if an ally) while Trump implodes the world we grew up in. So talking about the structural issues that are a major problem in the next election is something that might at least sway some people.

Mass protests are one thing I could see actually having an impact, but the last few decades have slowly eroded belief in protest and not enough people are getting out in them.

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44 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Uhm, no. That is now how it works. It's a huge problem and it often DOES make it so that people's opinions lack the impact it does. You might believe they deserve it and that is completely your right as a human being.

You would also be very wrong to do so, but it's your right.

I come from a country where election cheating has been turned into a fine art, especially on a local level. Here are a couple of examples from just the last couple of elections:

- Vote buying is a standard practice, and the price and parties willing to pay are well-known. You take a photo of the ballot with your phone as proof and go to the local party offices to collect your money.

- If you hold a low-level/unqualified position in a public/government company, you are expected to vote for the ruling party to keep your job. Again, ballot photo is used as proof.

- Dead people regularly vote, and so do people who moved out of the country.

- A politician from a minor party bought votes with government money. After becoming the Minister of Agriculture, he handed out "agricultural subsidies" to his voters in key areas, regardless of whether they actually did any farming. The story broke out, and nothing happened because his party was key to maintaining the governing coalition. That guy is still active in politics.

- There is a natural-resource rich municipality with 200 registered voters and 17 people actually living there.

- Ballots are often made invalid during the counting process simply by making a mark on it to make it look like you voted for multiple parties.

- Major parties created "shell" minor parties filled with their people for the purpose of having extra election observers present during vote counting.

- When the ruling coalition lost its majority, two opposition parliament members were outright bribed to switch parties. The biggest internet portal in the country published proof, together with phone recordings. Nothing happened.

- Anecdotally, an opposition election observer in a remote village had a gun pulled on him during the vote count and was told to keep his mouth shut about what he saw if he wants to go home alive.

And yet, none of that stuff kept me from voting in every single election since I was 18 for the party closest to my beliefs. This is why I find the complaints about gerrymandering in U.S. politics so silly. The only way to make a change is to keep pushing within the bounds of what is in your power.

No election is ever "fair", either because of the money involved, unequal exposure for different political options, media bias, built-in advantage for incumbents and major parties, rules about voting districts and who is allowed to vote, or outright cheating like what I described. And yet even such imperfect democracy is preferable to the alternative (government change via revolution / civil war).

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44 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Pretty hard for non Americans to do anything though

To be fair, we can still donate to a shitload of ActBlue causes. I've done that myself over the last year.

Apart from that, the rest of the world need to make sure that once Trump is replaced by someone who actually knows what transatlantic means and what NATO stands for, Europe et. al. still has leaders of the non-fascist variety who are willing to pick up their end of the phone line and start mending fences

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18 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Well, first, having a Democratic governor should help (Corbett was governor during the last redistricting) as he can veto any plan - so make sure to reelect Wolf in 2018!  Second, in terms of the assembly, a lot of that gap between registration numbers and partisan makeup is precisely because of who turns out for local elections, that's the entire point.  Third, PA actually has one of the oldest and least "partisan" redistricting methods for state legislature seats:

 

By turning out in greater numbers!

For STATE legislature seats. If you look at the boundaries for the congressional districts I mentioned upthread, you'll find that they do not respect municipal, town, borough or even street boundaries. I could be in one district and my neighbor in another. It's totally ridiculous. And as for the state districting being fair, I refer you to PA Senate Bill 1200. See Wiki for details. The formatting here is a mess and I'm tired of trying to fix it. 

The upshot of it is that it was challenged and SCOTUS couldn't agree on any standards to which gerrymandering is judged to violate the Constitution.As a result, the Republicans took control of both houses and pitted incumbent Democrats against each other. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redistricting_in_Pennsylvania

I doubt that Wolf will be re-elected. The Republicans in the General Assembly have made sure he takes the blame for their childishness and ridiculousness. And because of most of this state is just Northern Redneck, they buy into it hook, line and sinker. The new budget (overdue, as usual) raises taxes and all kinds of fees, including new taxes on utilities. And yet Wolf takes the blame. Two years ago, the budget was 9 months overdue and he refused to sign it when they finally did come up with one because it was so bad, so it lapsed into law. The intent was to let the Republicans in the Assembly reap what they sowed, but it didn't work out that way. School districts were this close to shutting down and had to borrow heavily to keep their doors open, and the state's credit rating took a huge hit. 

The General Assembly is in no way being held accountable for any of this. 

Thanks Republicans.

And there's more. Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) is on the record in 2012 as saying:

http://www.politicspa.com/turzai-voter-id-law-means-romney-can-win-pa/37153/

I don't mean to rant, but to say that gerrymandering is any way fair is being disingenuous at best. And yes, Democrats do it too. Maryland is the perfect example.

Sorry for the mess. I tried to clean it up but I can't delete the quote boxes. 

 

Quote

 

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30 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

He threw the best paper towels at them, what else is he to do?

Let them enjoy cloud like softness and 2X absorption

It’s kind of funny, in an unhinged way, that he referred to them as “beautiful paper towels.”

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Donald Trump had never seen a towel made of paper before, he and his messes are cleansed only by the finest handworked linens inlaid with gold and wielded by deaf mutes who practice on impoted baby pygmy elephants to prepare for his bulbous magnificence. 

"Paper? Like Money? How nice for them"

But really, the President is telling American citizens to go screw after a catastrophe and it won't endanger his presidency at all. And beside the open hostility toward PR, the Virgin Islands are all but forgotten.

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57 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

For STATE legislature seats.

Right.  I included that information because you emphasized the partisan makeup of the Assembly and I wasn't sure why.

58 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

If you look at the boundaries for the congressional districts I mentioned upthread, you'll find that they do not respect municipal, town, borough or even street boundaries.

Sure - for PA, gerrymandering's effect is largely borne out in the Philly area.  There are 6 districts and the spreads are D +40, D +31, R +2, R +1, R +2, and D +15.  Anyway, the point is holding the governorship is still of great importance due to veto power.

1 hour ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

And as for the state districting being fair, I refer you to PA Senate Bill 1200. See Wiki for details. The formatting here is a mess and I'm tired of trying to fix it. 

Yeah, there's no perfect redistricting method, as you alluded to earlier.  Even independent commissions have not shown to be significantly less partisan.  My point was simply at the state legislature level PA actually has one of the "better" methods.  Personally, I think the best worst solution is treating each state as a multi-member district, but (1) it's arguably unconstitutional, (2) even if it wasn't, it's never going to happen, and (3) even if it was going to happen, working out the logistics are difficult (e.g. if you ask Texas voters to choose 36 MCs, you're going to get a shitload of runoff).

1 hour ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

I doubt that Wolf will be re-elected. The Republicans in the General Assembly have made sure he takes the blame for their childishness and ridiculousness.

Well, it's pretty much axiomatic that an executive is going to get hit much harder with blame attribution than a legislative body.  Especially when it comes to budget battles and governors.  However, I think it's far too early write off Wolf.  Sure, his numbers look bad right now, but on top of it looking more like "a pox on both your houses" thing," there are other caveats:

Quote

Only 35 percent of respondents said Wolf had done his job well enough to deserve re-election. Half of respondents said it was time to give someone new a chance. Fifteen percent were undecided.

Pollster Jim Lee told the station that Wolf's numbers could - and likely would - shift when he was pitted against a specific candidate instead of a generic "someone new." [...]

Franklin & Marshall College poll released last month showed Wolf's approval ratings down slightly from 41 percent to 38 percent. The numbers tracked similarly to Wolf's predecessors, former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell and Tom Ridge, both of whom went on to win re-election to a second term. Wolf's numbers were also similar to ex-GOP Gov. Tom Corbett, whom Wolf defeated in 2014.

There was also a Morning Consult poll from just three months ago that put him at 48-37, so I think he's still got a good chance - and it's not like his prospective opponents are world-beaters.

1 hour ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

I don't mean to rant, but to say that gerrymandering is any way fair is being disingenuous at best.

Certainly never said that.  Just saying it's no reason to throw in the towel either.

1 hour ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Sorry for the mess.

No worries, it was fine.

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9 hours ago, S John said:

I don't know exactly how it happened, and it certainly predates Trump, but somehow conservatives were able to firmly attach thier brand to the idea of patriotism at the exclusion of liberal Americans.  To be a real American patriot is to be a conservative American, this is a really common theme.  

It’s actually fairly easy to understand. Conservatives have essentially wrapped themselves in the flag and argued that anyone else who doesn’t do so and questions them is unpatriotic. They push narratives like “respect the flag,” “stand for the anthem” and “support the troops no matter what,” etc., and they’ve conditioned their supporters that any attempt at a nuanced discussion about these issues automatically means you hate America. That’s how we’ve arrived at a point where they think it’s more patriotic to force people to stand for the anthem than to allow people to exercise their First Amendment rights.

And to that point, I heard a fascinating comment yesterday on Bomani Jones’ radio show. He was reading an article on the air about players kneeling in the NFL, and as he was doing it he did a double take and said (paraphrasing), “Wait, has the “a” in anthem always been capitalized? Wait a minute, hold up, I see what’s happening here. They’re trying to subtly changing the language. They’re idolizing the anthem. Next it will be the flag.” So to segue back to what I said before, that’s how Conservatives do it. They use subtle, precise linguistic tricks to condition people to their brand of patriotism.

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9 hours ago, S John said:

I don't know exactly how it happened, and it certainly predates Trump, but somehow conservatives were able to firmly attach thier brand to the idea of patriotism at the exclusion of liberal Americans.  To be a real American patriot is to be a conservative American, this is a really common theme.  

It’s actually fairly easy to understand. Conservatives have essentially wrapped themselves in the flag and argued that anyone else who doesn’t do so and questions them is unpatriotic. They push narratives like “respect the flag,” “stand for the anthem” and “support the troops no matter what,” etc., and they’ve conditioned their supporters that any attempt at a nuanced discussion about these issues automatically means you hate America. That’s how we’ve arrived at a point where they think it’s more patriotic to force people to stand for the anthem than to allow people to exercise their First Amendment rights.

And to that point, I heard a fascinating comment yesterday on Bomani Jones’ radio show. He was reading an article on the air about players kneeling in the NFL, and as he was doing it he did a double take and said (paraphrasing), “Wait, has the “a” in anthem always been capitalized? Wait a minute, hold up, I see what’s happening here. They’re trying to subtly changing the language. They’re idolizing the anthem. Next it will be the flag.” So to segue back to what I said before, that’s how Conservatives do it. They use subtle, precise linguistic tricks to condition people to their brand of patriotism.

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Seemingly on cue, Vox's lead story right now is on how Gillespie's campaign demonstrates how the batshit GOP base is entirely of the elites' own making:

Quote

Yet viewed from a distance, the clash between the GOP establishment and the rebels really does look in many ways like the narcissism of small differences. Ed Gillespie, the Republican nominee for governor of Virginia, is as establishment as they come. But aware that free market economic policy doesn’t move voters these days (if it ever did), he’s running a campaign of racial demagoguery completely indistinguishable from something Donald Trump, Moore, Blackburn or any of the outsiders would do. At the end of the day, it’s a means to an end.

In the immortal words of Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio on Moore, “He’s going to be for tax reform, I think.”

 

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