US Politics: Red, Red Whine

[OldGimletEye]

12 hours ago, DMC said:

Matt Grossmann, a premier scholar in American Behavior, posted an interesting article on 538 yesterday:

Voters Like a Political Party Until It Passes Laws

 

I've always had the suspicion that certain sorts of centristy people, just can't make up their mind what they want. often leading us to a "blue, no yellow!" situation.

[Ice Queen]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

I think there's an argument for changing circumstances in 2024 which may make a candidate more to the left of Manchin viable in WV. Not full-on progressive, but nearer the Democratic mainstream. It all really depends on what happens in the next six years.

Unless there is a huge influx of young people, that's not going to happen. And there isn't going to be a huge influx. There are no viable industries or jobs there. People in the panhandles commute across state lines for work. There's nothing but farming and coal in the southern counties.

[Ice Queen]

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

If one wants a Democrat to win West Virginia, it has to be Manchin.  Swearengin would have been crushed by the Republicans, had she been the candidate.

I agree. Anyone more liberal that Manchin would get demolished. It really helped him that he was governor as well.

[Liver and Onions]

1 hour ago, Triskjavikson said:

Ask me the questions, Bridgekeeper, I'm not afraid!

Now that we're staring at a Kavanaugh approval, bracketing for a moment the sexual assault element...is it just fine to lie to the Senate now?  I thought perjury was like, a big deal.  Or was that just more of a norm and not so much of a law?  

Good question. If only the Bridge of Death scenario applied to those being questioned by Congress.

I've been wondering about the perjury issue, too.

[Morpheus]

Perjury before the Senate is investigated at the request of the Senate leadership, there isn’t an outside arbiter. One of the reasons they constrained that FBI investigation was that they did not want them reporting that they had proof Kavanaugh lied under oath. As long as the Republicans plug up their ears, they can ignore the lies (the current ones and the ones from past hearing years ago) as if they never happened. Some Democrats have talked of impeaching him should they take the Senate, I don’t know if the same lies ignored by Republicans could be a basis for that process.

[maarsen]

18 minutes ago, Liver and Onions said:

Good question. If only the Bridge of Death scenario applied to those being questioned by Congress.

I've been wondering about the perjury issue, too.

I suspect we would have an unacceptably high turnover rate for members of Congress.

[Martell Spy]

37 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

Perjury before the Senate is investigated at the request of the Senate leadership, there isn’t an outside arbiter. One of the reasons they constrained that FBI investigation was that they did not want them reporting that they had proof Kavanaugh lied under oath. As long as the Republicans plug up their ears, they can ignore the lies (the current ones and the ones from past hearing years ago) as if they never happened. Some Democrats have talked of impeaching him should they take the Senate, I don’t know if the same lies ignored by Republicans could be a basis for that process.

He will be punished. Right after they get the CIA torturers and the bankers that caused the Great Recession.

[The guy from the Vale]

Considering his role in the CIA's torture program, he might well be punished for the former before then.

 

I'm not holding my breath though.

[DMC]

6 hours ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Unless there is a huge influx of young people, that's not going to happen. And there isn't going to be a huge influx. There are no viable industries or jobs there. People in the panhandles commute across state lines for work. There's nothing but farming and coal in the southern counties.

I think it's short-sighted to basically write-off the possibility completely.  First, no one knows what things will look like in six years and six years is a very long time in politics.  For instance, six years ago Obama was getting reelected.  The only thing we do know about 2024 is that it will a presidential rather than midterm electorate, which generally is advantageous (or less disadvantageous) to Democrats, all else being equal.

More importantly, finding the right candidate isn't about finding the right point on the line of a one-dimensional ideological spectrum.  It's about finding the right candidate.  Look at Richard Ojeda, who if he pulls off an upset in the WV 3rd would make Conor Lamb's victory look run-of-the-mill.  He might share Manchin's cultural values (and frankly I have no idea how he would have voted with Kavanaugh), but he's also far (far) to the left of Manchin on a host of issues.

[Cas Stark]

The larger question, beyond how one side or the other ekes out a victory, is how to move forward when the two sides no longer have different ideas on how reach the same goals, different priorities, even different interest groups as the base, but where each sees the other side as destructive, immoral and unhinged, where there is almost nothing left in common, not even a belief in civility.  Historically, this level of a rift ends in bloodshed.  We have the two sides literally seeing the same events, hearing the same words, reviewing the same material and coming to diametrically opposite conclusions. 

[Martell Spy]

29 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The larger question, beyond how one side or the other ekes out a victory, is how to move forward when the two sides no longer have different ideas on how reach the same goals, different priorities, even different interest groups as the base, but where each sees the other side as destructive, immoral and unhinged, where there is almost nothing left in common, not even a belief in civility.  Historically, this level of a rift ends in bloodshed.  We have the two sides literally seeing the same events, hearing the same words, reviewing the same material and coming to diametrically opposite conclusions. 

So, you're saying both sides do it.

[Serious Callers Only]

It's either fascist helicopters dumping journalists on the ocean or open civil war now. As was apparently obvious when Nazis took power over the GOP and a unhinged narcissist running afraid of his sins and meekly submitting to enemy nations was allowed to campaign by both the government, the GOP and the FBI and then proceeded to dump tens of thousands of children in for profit concentration camps. I fear it will manifest ultimately as a generalized invasion/genocide of the american continents after the purges, but Iran is a likely prequel. If you're brown or a jew, make no mistake, your family is in deadly danger - the plurocrats will try to contain the racist beast, but they may not be able. Being a 'good american' won't save you.

 

And Fox News wasn't destroyed long ago ofc. I can only hope Europe goverments take note and dismantle all the purveyors of malicious propaganda. I fully support a facebook/reddit hate national subs ban now, not to mention 'right wing' radio and tv. The Westminster model is more resistant to this sort of evil, but no reason to take risks. Fuck the Murdochs hard for ruining western civilization just prior its greatest test (global warming, if you're a fact challenged regressive).

[Cas Stark]

9 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

So, you're saying both sides do it.

Is that a real question?  Yes, both sides do it.  

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

The larger question, beyond how one side or the other ekes out a victory, is how to move forward when the two sides no longer have different ideas on how reach the same goals, different priorities, even different interest groups as the base, but where each sees the other side as destructive, immoral and unhinged, where there is almost nothing left in common, not even a belief in civility.  Historically, this level of a rift ends in bloodshed.  We have the two sides literally seeing the same events, hearing the same words, reviewing the same material and coming to diametrically opposite conclusions. 

Probably by convincing certain sorts of centrist that their centrism is often based on a lot of illogical and confused bull pucky.
They may feel their centrism is more reasonable than "both sides", but often they are just splitting the middle without very good reasons, and think that they are in fact above the fray, when in the truth they are just confused.
And once these certain sort of centrist stop being centrist just for the sake of looking centristy and trying to put on airs of being reasonable, they may come to the conclusion that one side is a lot crazier than the other and has been for years.

Though admittedly some "both sides" centrist types aren't really centrist at all, but are Trump supporters and too embarrassed to admit it.

[Cas Stark]

31 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Probably by convincing certain sorts of centrist that their centrism is often based on a lot of illogical and confused bull pucky.
They may feel their centrism is more reasonable than "both sides", but often they are just splitting the middle without very good reasons, and think that they are in fact above the fray, when in the truth they are just confused.
And once these certain sort of centrist stop being centrist just for the sake of looking centristy and trying to put on airs of being reasonable, they may come to the conclusion that one side is a lot crazier than the other and has been for years.

Though admittedly some "both sides" centrist types aren't really centrist at all, but are Trump supporters and too embarrassed to admit it.

The centrists/swing voters are about 30%, that leaves the rest as adhering either to the right or the left.  As a moderate conservative, I know what I read here on this thread-how conservatives are spoken about--strikes me as getting very, very close to Red Guard territory, and I mean that quite seriously.  Indeed, I believe one side is a lot crazier than the other, but it's a different side than you believe is crazier.  

[Larry of the Lawn]

19 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The centrists/swing voters are about 30%, that leaves the rest as adhering either to the right or the left.  As a moderate conservative, I know what I read here on this thread-how conservatives are spoken about--strikes me as getting very, very close to Red Guard territory, and I mean that quite seriously.  Indeed, I believe one side is a lot crazier than the other, but it's a different side than you believe is crazier.  

Because believing that the resources of the world should be divided up more or less equally, as opposed to concentrated in the hands of a few people per thousand, is a crazier idea.  Lol

[OldGimletEye]

18 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The centrists/swing voters are about 30%, that leaves the rest as adhering either to the right or the left.  As a moderate conservative, I know what I read here on this thread-how conservatives are spoken about--strikes me as getting very, very close to Red Guard territory, and I mean that quite seriously.  Indeed, I believe one side is a lot crazier than the other, but it's a different side than you believe is crazier.  

Well quite frankly conservatives deserve to be taken out to the woodshed.

In little less than two decades, I've watched conservatives bungle just about everything. They bungled the Iraq War. Then they bungled the greatest economic crash, since the Great Depression. They are clueless on a number of policy topics including healthcare (which they just blatantly lied about for 7 years) and banking regulation. They keep on trying the same old same old supply side horseshit that doesn't work because they believe in little fairy tales about the recovery in the 1980s went down.

They don't care about global warming. Could care less about issues of sexual harassment. They don't care about the excessive use of police force against minorities.

And they go off and elect an Orange Idiot, largely because of white identity politics, the evidence which is pretty well established. When Mr. Republican George Will leaves the Republican Party, that ought to be somewhat of a canary in the coalmine.  Of course when Trump fails, conservatives will claim he didn't do the true conservatism, just like they did with Bush. And I thought Bush would be about the worse president we could get. I guess I was wrong about that.

At some point, I think people rightly just run out of patience. And despite your suggestion here, one need not be a hardcore Marxist when they decide to go full blown Popeye and say "That's all I can stands, and I can't stands no more".

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

The larger question, beyond how one side or the other ekes out a victory, is how to move forward when the two sides no longer have different ideas on how reach the same goals, different priorities, even different interest groups as the base, but where each sees the other side as destructive, immoral and unhinged, where there is almost nothing left in common, not even a belief in civility.  Historically, this level of a rift ends in bloodshed.

That's an easy one: a slow yet regular erosion of all democratic and institutional norms, until the party in power ends up imposing its views on the other half by force.
And of course right now it's the Republicans in power, with Trump being a would-be authoritarian. It's quite... crazy to even attempt a "both sides" here when the Democrats have no actual power and little prospect of getting any back until 2020 at least.
A different way to put it would be to question whether what the Republicans are doing now is in any way comparable to what the Democrats did when they controled all levers of power circa 2009. Were American conservatives oppressed and scared in 2009? Did Obama flirt with authoritarianism and reject all institutional norms? I personally find that argument impossible to believe ; on the contrary Obama was quite meek.
Conceivably a populist Democrat with heavy socialist leanings could be as bad as Trump eventually... But right now there are many people who have good reason to be terrified of Trump and his government (and not just in the US). The bottom line is that conservative policies hurt people. They hurt the poor, minorities, women, immigrants, and everyone who isn't well-off to begin with. To get a similar level of socio-economic violence on the left you'd need to go into actual socialism, which is very unlikely to happen in the US.
Meanwhile, you (conservatives) are winning. And you need to realize that you can't win and play the victim card at the same time. That could work in 2009 in some quarters perhaps. Not in 2018. The people who hate on conservatives here on the board are essentially powerless. And if you think they're extreme, perhaps you should remember that Trump isn't a David Cameron-type conservative. He's not even a Reagan-type conservative. He's more like a Putin or an Erdogan-type. If you think people here are "Red Guard" perhaps you should bear in mind that the current face of conservatism in the US is Donald Trump.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

The centrists/swing voters are about 30%

No they aren't.  At most it's half that.

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Is that a real question?  Yes, both sides do it.  

It was a real question. I was seeing if you are purveyor of "both sides do it", a fairly well-known term to regulars in this thread.