US Politics: Red Whine Hangover

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

I don't really know, me, I am made pretty jittery by the ideas of abolishing the electoral college, changing the senate, because 2 from every state now isn't fair to high population states, moving to a straight popular vote for president, and packing the supreme court II.  This from my perspective sounds like a desire to destroy a whole lot of American institutions in order to get power. I am sure you know, a lot of these 'checks and balances' and levels, etc. exist for exactly the reason of not having a society run by 51%.  Gerrymandering is done by both parties, so that's a draw.  I find this all very troubling, and it's weird to me coming from people who spend 24/7 in semi hysterical rants about Trump suspending elections and turning into Hitler/Stalin/Pinchochet that these ideas don't strike anyone as problematic, or that would create a negative impression for conservatives.

 

So it's better that the society is run by less than 50%?

On to something completely different, and far more important:

Is this true?

Not necessarily all of the points discussed, but the Trump Admin saying that there will be a 7DegF (what's that in C? 2, 2.5?) temperature rise by 2100?

For a while I've thought that most people who oppose climate change policies are doing so for purely short term economic reasons and not because they think climate change is fake, or that there's nothing that can be done about it. But the main theme of this video seems to be the Trump Admin pretty much confessing that this is indeed their attitude and what informs their public policy thinking.

With the latest IPCC report coming out, it seems the world can't afford 8 years of a US administration that does not implement some pretty radical climate change policies. I'd be willing to allow Trump to put 9 religious zealots who will overturn Roe v Wade on the SC if he would put binding, bipartisan policies in place to get the US to carbon neutrality by 2045, and find a way to force China and India to do the same. I'm sorry to hypothetically ask women to sacrifice autonomy over their wombs for a generation or two. But I think climate change is more important, at this moment in human history.

[Altherion]

12 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Oh, I agree. But the left will now participate in making things worse.

I would assume that, unfortunately, radicalism and violence are now going to spread on the left as well. As you well know, right-wingers assume it already has.

I am reasonably sure that the assumption in your last sentence is accurate. The left was as violent as the right even before Trump won the nomination (see, for example, this rally in March 2016). Furthermore, there were discussions on this very forum of labeling people with certain insulting terms and then using this as a justification for punching them -- despite the latter doing nothing more than speaking. In fact, I distinctly remember saying that this escalation will make things worse with the reaction being mainly insults.

[Martell Spy]

4 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

So it's better that the society is run by less than 50%?

On to something completely different, and far more important:

Is this true?

Not necessarily all of the points discussed, but the Trump Admin saying that there will be a 7DegF (what's that in C? 2, 2.5?) temperature rise by 2100?

For a while I've thought that most people who oppose climate change policies are doing so for purely short term economic reasons and not because they think climate change is fake, or that there's nothing that can be done about it. But the main theme of this video seems to be the Trump Admin pretty much confessing that this is indeed their attitude and what informs their public policy thinking.

With the latest IPCC report coming out, it seems the world can't afford 8 years of a US administration that does not implement some pretty radical climate change policies. I'd be willing to allow Trump to put 9 religious zealots who will overturn Roe v Wade on the SC if he would put binding, bipartisan policies in place to get the US to carbon neutrality by 2045, and find a way to force China and India to do the same. I'm sorry to hypothetically ask women to sacrifice autonomy over their wombs for a generation or two. But I think climate change is more important, at this moment in human history.

Plenty of Republicans recognize and admit climate change is happening. And then they say technology will save us in time.

[Martell Spy]

1 minute ago, Altherion said:

I am reasonably sure that the assumption in your last sentence is accurate. The left was as violent as the right even before Trump won the nomination (see, for example, this rally in March 2016). Furthermore, there were discussions on this very forum of labeling people with certain insulting terms and then using this as a justification for punching them -- despite the latter doing nothing more than speaking. In fact, I distinctly remember saying that this escalation will make things worse with the reaction being mainly insults.

Really. How, many Americans has Antifa killed?

[Serious Callers Only]

Soon, probably dozens with all the false flags. This is not hard to figure out -> defanged, corrupted FBI -> false flags -> suspended election to round up 'leftists'.

I'm only surprised that mysteriously russian accented men aren't killing people yet (probably women's marches for maximum insult) and mysteriously escaping or being 'captured' while shouting ANTIFA yet. Eh, rightwing nazis and Erik Prince blackwater, sorry 'academi', sorry, some other name i forgot, serve well enough i guess.

[Frog Eater]

Well, lucky for those of us in small states, abolishing the electoral college will require it to be ratified by 2/3 of the states, which wont be happening. This country is more than Los Angeles and New York, and its representation should reflect such. 

[TrueMetis]

If you care so much about proper representation why do you support a system that does everything it can short of actually preventing certain people from voting, something it used to do and republican's are attempting to re-implement, to prevent proper representation?

[aceluby]

17 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

Well, lucky for those of us in small states, abolishing the electoral college will require it to be ratified by 2/3 of the states, which wont be happening. This country is more than Los Angeles and New York, and its representation should reflect such. 

Ah yes, your vote should count for more.  Because reasons.

[Bonnot OG]

56 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

What did he do? ( I dread to ask)

Started whining about how the Dems are mistaken if they think they're going to pack the court, or some shit. 

[Frog Eater]

4 minutes ago, aceluby said:

Ah yes, your vote should count for more.  Because reasons.

the values of Los Angeles are not the same as Alaska, or Idaho, or Alabama. Not everyone should be held subject to the wants of Los Angeles and New York. 

[Frog Eater]

11 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

If you care so much about proper representation why do you support a system that does everything it can short of actually preventing certain people from voting, something it used to do and republican's are attempting to re-implement, to prevent proper representation?

if by "certain people" you mean non-citizens, yeah, the Republicans are attempting to prevent them from voting

[Altherion]

39 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Really. How, many Americans has Antifa killed?

There have been relatively few deaths thus far because that would force the authorities to get involved, but there's plenty of violence and some of it certainly had the potential to result in death. For example:

Quote

Amid the chaos was a brief, but brutal, scene of violence. Out on the street, a young anti-fascist dressed in a hoodie, his face obscured by a bandanna, swung what seemed to be a large metal bike lock squarely onto the skull of an unwitting alt-right demonstrator. The victim was a 20-year-old college student, Sean Stiles, who had made the trip to Berkeley from his home in Santa Cruz. Though Stiles had been consorting with the men from Rise Above, the bike-lock attack was unprovoked. Stiles had been arguing with two young leftist women about illegal immigration; when he was hit, he simply put his hands on his head, which started gushing blood, and stumbled off as his assailant disappeared.

If you read the rest of the long article, the guy who committed the attack (the comments say he got off with 3 years probation) was, hilariously, a professor of ethics. The student seems to have recovered, but this is no in general guaranteed -- being hit in the head with a metal object is often enough to either kill or permanently disable; he was simply lucky.

28 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

Well, lucky for those of us in small states, abolishing the electoral college will require it to be ratified by 2/3 of the states, which wont be happening.

It's three-quarters of the states (two-thirds of either Congress or States to propose, three-quarters of States to ratify). Interestingly enough, the one and only thing that can't be changed this way is equal representation in the Senate -- that has to be unanimous.

[TrueMetis]

5 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

if by "certain people" you mean non-citizens, yeah, the Republicans are attempting to prevent them from voting

How, pray-tell, does making it more difficult to get an ID by closing DMV's in majority black areas prevent non-citizens from voting.

The Republicans are attempting to prevent black people from voting.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think the argument is unconvincing.  Germany in the 1920's and early 1930's experienced levels of political violence that don't exist in the USA.  Every political party (even the liberal ones) had their own paramilitary wing.  The Weimar Republic was viewed as being (at best) a necessary evil, and was actively loathed by many people on the right and left.  Germans couldn't believe that they'd lost WWI, and believed themselves the victims of foreign aggression.  These views were pretty much held across the spectrum, not just by Nazis.  Then they were hit by the Great Depression, which affected Germany almost worse than any other country, and opinion radicalised still further.

US democracy enjoys broad public support, and hyperpartisanship has not resulted in political parties using violence against each other.   The USA remains the top dog, internationally.  It's not an aggrieved defeated power, thirsting to win back lost territories.  And, it has a very successful economy.  The factors that could drive a Nazi-type power into power, just don't exist in the USA.

Trump is a charlatan, but he's no Hitler.  A Hitler would have unleashed a wave of violence against political opponents (including some on the right) and moved rapidly to suppress rival political parties, and trade unions.  He's more of a Huey Long figure.

 

1. The author is quite clear that he doesn't think today's authoritarian types will operate like the fascists of the 1930s did. Today's authoritarians will be much more subtle than their 1930s forebears.

2. It's true that many Germans, and not just Nazi's were stunned by the the loss in World War 1. Germany had only become a united country in 1871. With it's large population and large industrial base, it looked like it was going to be the top dog in Europe, until it suffered a defeat. That surely bummed out lots of Germans. One might say that Hitler ran on platform of "making Germany great again."

It's true the United States has never suffered a military defeat as large as Germany did in World War 1. But, I submit, that US's power will go into relative decline in the 21st Century. It maybe the leading power, but it won't have same kind of power it found itself after WW2.  Principally because of the rise of China. For  some or many Americans, that prospect is a bit terrifying. Assuming that Make America Great Again isn't just code for "Make America White Supremacist Again", evidently some people believed that Trump was going to ensure American hegemony into the 21st century. Nobody has any clue how, but gosh darn it, he's going to do it somehow. Evidently by stirring up shit with the US's long term allies.

Also, it appears that the biggest single factor for the Trump vote was white resentment. Evidently some people fear a loss of status, perhaps something like how the loss of status played so heavily on the German Psyche after Word War !.

Also, I'd note that one of the most vicious and untrue lies that came out of World War 1 was the "stab in the back" theory. The theory went something like: The Germany Army was winning on the front, until they were stabbed in the back by the Jews. Never mind the fact that many Jews fought bravely in the German Army and something like 2000 or so had been awarded the Pour Le Merite, more popularly known as the Blue Max, many Germans believed it, particularly after Ludendorf gave it as an excuse, and the Nazi's milked that lie for all it was worth.

Similarly Trump has made false and untrue claims against immigrants, claiming they commit crimes when there is about 0 evidence they commit more crimes than the native born.

As far as economic factors. This is a topic that has been covered extensively among the left and as it stand now, it seems the primary factor in Trump's election was racial resentment. Right now, the US, like every other country is crawling out of the GFC, which has scarred the economy mainly because of the Republican Party's insane gold buggism, and austerity, etc. However, a recession is in our future. I don't know when it will happen, but it will. And with interest rates low as they are, we could easily find ourselves right back into a ZLB or liquidity trap situation, again. And you know when that happens, the shit really hits the fan. Right now this is something that concerns central bankers around the world. And there is a lot of discussion about what monetary policy should do (Price Targeting, Negative Interest Rates, QE and so forth), since the assumption is that fiscal support won't be forthcoming. As you know Heinrich Brunning was the original austerity fuhrer, making the depression worse in Germany by telling stories about Swabian Housewives and such. The Republican Party are his progeny, The point here is don't count out a bad economic situation just yet and with our lovely Republican Party in control it could be very bad.

And Trump may not be exactly like ol' Shicklgruber. But, you know, you don't have to be at his levels of jack assery to be a jack ass.

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Not necessarily all of the points discussed, but the Trump Admin saying that there will be a 7DegF (what's that in C? 2, 2.5?) temperature rise by 2100?

For a while I've thought that most people who oppose climate change policies are doing so for purely short term economic reasons and not because they think climate change is fake, or that there's nothing that can be done about it. But the main theme of this video seems to be the Trump Admin pretty much confessing that this is indeed their attitude and what informs their public policy thinking.

With the latest IPCC report coming out, it seems the world can't afford 8 years of a US administration that does not implement some pretty radical climate change policies. I'd be willing to allow Trump to put 9 religious zealots who will overturn Roe v Wade on the SC if he would put binding, bipartisan policies in place to get the US to carbon neutrality by 2045, and find a way to force China and India to do the same. I'm sorry to hypothetically ask women to sacrifice autonomy over their wombs for a generation or two. But I think climate change is more important, at this moment in human history.

7F is over 3C, closer to 4C I think. As I saw someone put it on twitter yesterday, they don't actually believe its not happening they just want to live in the world that it creates - that's what the walls and guns are for. They have no interest in taking any action to prevent it happening though so your idea of throwing women and minorities under the bus is a rather confusing idea.

[LongRider]

On ‎10‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 5:41 PM, Artimicia said:

All of this speculation and such on America and it's political situation and I can tell you, ~~~snip~~~

Texas is a vast network and vast landscape of people who don't trust the government entirely and often live by their own rules ~~~~wut?~~~

Game of Thrones   ~~~~blah blah blah some more~~~~Game of Thrones ~~~snip~~~~`

 

 

Well, winter is coming, I guess that matters.     

[Frog Eater]

6 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

How, pray-tell, does making it more difficult to get an ID by closing DMV's in majority black areas prevent non-citizens from voting.

The Republicans are attempting to prevent black people from voting.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/12/16767426/alabama-voter-suppression-senate-moore-jones

If you are talking about the closures in Alabama, they ended up not closing them

[Kalbear]

45 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

Well, lucky for those of us in small states, abolishing the electoral college will require it to be ratified by 2/3 of the states, which wont be happening. This country is more than Los Angeles and New York, and its representation should reflect such. 

Not really. All that needs to happen is states who have signed the EC 270 pledge. At that point you don't need to abolish it; you simply ignore it.

 

20 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

if by "certain people" you mean non-citizens, yeah, the Republicans are attempting to prevent them from voting

Again, this is laughable; there are absurdly well-documented examples of Republicans openly attempting to stop minorities from voting or to effectively cancel their vote. But you know this, and go along with it because it suits your ideal. 

[LongRider]

10 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

The Republicans are attempting to prevent black people from voting.

Always an ongoing project, always.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Frog Eater said:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/12/16767426/alabama-voter-suppression-senate-moore-jones

If you are talking about the closures in Alabama, they ended up not closing them

That's true - and do you know why? 

Because people spoke out, heavily and openly, about it. The attempt was made.