US Politics: Reaching the Tipping Point

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Agreed.  What is bizarre is that the US military as it stands, simply isn’t large enough to take on Iran one on one.  

It could be pretty quickly though. We just have to be willing to pay the price, which we’re not going to do. That said, I doubt we’ll see too many traditional major land wars in the future. Cyber* warfare is the way of the future, along with corporations developing their own paramilitary forces.

 

*Now before your mind goes there Jace, no, we’re not going to be sexting each other to death.

[Jace, Extat]

Just now, Zorral said:

The US doesn't even have a Secretary of Defense!  As of this moment, not even an 'acting' SOD.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/acting-defense-secretary-patrick-shanahan-will-step-down-acting-post-n1018921

 

Good, nobody to stand up to Daddy and his cronies.

People, this is all working exactly the way it's supposed to. There's no problems. NO problems here, FOLKS! There have never been problems!

The crooked FAKE news DEMs want you to think THAT! THEY WANT you to think it, FOLKS! But we're not! We're not thinking! We don't think, THAT! No, we don't! IRAN! I've been tough, you know I have to be tough. They want you to be tough, but then you're TOO tough and it's like "OH MY GOD HE'S SO TOUGH!" So tough, folks! Even the military, even the military guys, they go "wow, uh, I didn't think he'd be THIS tough."

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, Darzin said:

 I think the Democrats have gone a little bit nuts on immigration frankly, not the politicians but the base large portions of them are comparing these migrant detention camps to concentration camps ect. 

They are, literally, concentration camps. They are not death camps, but the concentration camps came and started in 1931. 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

By the way it’s “Martial Law”, not “Marshal Law”.

I'm pretty sure Marshal Law is the next Dick Wolf procedural.

Anyway, I know this board has to express its anxiety about Trump refusing to leave office every few months.  And that's good, it's like talk therapy.  But the idea that he'll be able to stage a coup because he has large support - or even "infiltrated" - the military and law enforcement is just willful fantasy.  Do active duty members tend to support Trump more than the general public?  Yes, although it trends pretty closely to his overall approval.  Are there neo-nazis in the military and law enforcement?  Sure, that's called probability.  But in terms of the military, you know who doesn't like Trump?  The officers:

Quote

As has been the case in the past, the poll shows that officers are less enamored with Trump than enlisted troops. More than half have an unfavorable view of his presidency, against 41 percent who have a favorable view.

Still, that’s an improvement for Trump, who saw only a 31 percent favorable rating from officers in the poll one year ago.

Couple that with the fact that, as @Zorral noted, he can't even find someone to run the Pentagon, and the idea that he could exact a military junta is manifestly farcical.  Then lets look at law enforcement.  You mean like the FBI that he's waged war with to an unprecedented degree basically since taking office?  Or the intelligence community, who he only berates on occasion?  To stage a coup, you need the support of institutional elites.  Trump explicitly ran against institutional elites, and has been damn true to his word in that regard. 

The logic that Trump has the capability to deny an election result or refuse to hold an election based on his support from the military and law enforcement is wholly and decidedly ass-backwards.  Now, will he whine about the result if he loses and decry it as illegitimate?  Of Fucking Course.  But his avenue is much more likely to be to take it to court.  That's his MO - suing people - not being competent enough to stage a coup by harnessing the most well-funded and complex security organization in the world.

As for the tanker attacks being another Gulf of Tonkin, gimme a break.  On the night of the "second attack," LBJ went on national television to saber-rattle.  Where is Trump on this if that was his intent?  He'd be whining about this on twitter every morning at 4am.  Instead he's whining about Fox News polls.  Do Pompeo and Bolton have a hard on for a war in Iran?  Duh, they both have their entire careers.  But their employ is more a reflection of the fact nobody else is willing to work for him, not that Trump is really interested in starting a war. 

That's not to say Trump won't wag the dog eventually - if he suspects he's gonna lose I could totally see him ginning something up, and he almost certainly will do so at least IRT tweeting like an idiot.  But one could make the argument that he ran as the less hawkish candidate compared to Clinton.  And, really, he hasn't done anything militarily in two and a half years to think that's changed.  When there's evidence that's changed, yeah, the opposition should be vigilant against it.  But until then you're just worrying for worrying's sake.  Doctors tell me that's not helpful.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

11 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

They are, literally, concentration camps. They are not death camps, but the concentration camps came and started in 1931. 

And this was re-normalized through our "detainment" camps in Gitmo. What's happening on the border is an outrage, but people will say that some of us overreact. 

[Kalbear]

13 minutes ago, DMC said:

 

The logic that Trump has the capability to deny an election result or refuse to hold an election based on his support from the military and law enforcement is wholly and decidedly ass-backwards.  Now, will he whine about the result if he loses and decry it as illegitimate?  Of Fucking Course.  But his avenue is much more likely to be to take it to court.  That's his MO - suing people - not beiFrng competent enough to stage a coup by harnessing the most well-funded and complex security organization in the world.

Yeah, i agree. I don't see Trump taking over via military fiat. I see him taking over first by getting support from the House and Senate Republicans (in particular, I don't see Mitch McConnell actually denying him fuckall), and then making an executive order that suspends the results of an election indefinitely. I then see that being challenged in court, and given the choice between the right thing and letting abuse of executive power go for a while, I don't see entirely how Roberts decides. Would he vote to say that the executive doesn't have that power, if he thinks he does? Even if it's massively damaging to the country? That's where I think it gets a bit more realistic - that dems would capitulate too much, and the courts would actually decide in favor of Trump. 

13 minutes ago, DMC said:

That's not to say Trump won't wag the dog eventually - if he suspects he's gonna lose I could totally see him ginning something up, and he almost certainly will do so at least IRT tweeting like an idiot.  But one could make the argument that he ran as the less hawkish candidate compared to Clinton.  And, really, he hasn't done anything militarily in two and a half years to think that's changed.  When there's evidence that's changed, yeah, the opposition should be vigilant against it.  But until then you're just worrying for worrying's sake.  Doctors tell me that's not helpful.

I think you're wrong about what he's done militarily or not. He increased presence in Afghanistan, he ignored the senate and house on Yemen, he increased support in various places like Syria. And that's not talking about increasing tensions with Iran and getting actual attacks happening now, or North Korea doing more missile testing, or China stretching its legs more. 

Mostly, I think Trump's doctrine of no war is entirely fictitious. He has no disciplined doctrine. He has no specific goals in mind. It's whatever his gut says. If he sees kids get gassed, he'll send some missiles to hit Syria. Not because he threatened to do so or it makes sense to, but because he feels bad for those kids. If he feels like war with Iran is the right thing to do, he'll do it. Has he done that yet? Honestly, I have no idea, and neither do you - but he could announce tomorrow that we're doing strikes on Iran and Shanahan resigned because of it, and that wouldn't be remotely surprising. 

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

He increased presence in Afghanistan, he ignored the senate and house on Yemen, he increased support in various places like Syria. And that's not talking about increasing tensions with Iran and getting actual attacks happening now, or North Korea doing more missile testing, or China stretching its legs more. 

Do you think our presence would be any less pronounced in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, or Yemen under a Clinton administration?  I find that very hard to believe.  As for what he's done with Iran, North Korea and China, yes, it's incredibly damaging to our position which makes conflict more likely, but I don't think you can really describe that as "militarily."  That's just idiotic and self-destructive diplomacy and posturing.

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Mostly, I think Trump's doctrine of no war is entirely fictitious. He has no disciplined doctrine.

Agreed there.  Like I said, I'm not ruling out the very large possibility that Trump will wag the dog.  It could happen in the next five minutes for all I know.  My point is I don't really see any evidence of it thus far.

[Kalbear]

20 minutes ago, DMC said:

Do you think our presence would be any less pronounced in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, or Yemen under a Clinton administration?  I find that very hard to believe.  As for what he's done with Iran, North Korea and China, yes, it's incredibly damaging to our position which makes conflict more likely, but I don't think you can really describe that as "militarily."  That's just idiotic and self-destructive diplomacy and posturing. 

Yemen? Yes, absolutely 100%. Afghanistan and Iraq? Maybe. Syria? Probably about the same. But Yemen - especailly with congress (and people like Tim Kaine) supporting our withdrawal from it, I don't see how Clinton wants that or goes along with it. 

And I think that anything that is promoting more military outcomes is certainly being more hawkish on the military. That is one of the difference between Trump and most politicians - he doesn't understand these kinds of cause and effects and doesn't care. 

20 minutes ago, DMC said:

Agreed there.  Like I said, I'm not ruling out the very large possibility that Trump will wag the dog.  It could happen in the next five minutes for all I know.  My point is I don't really see any evidence of it thus far.

I've seen a lot of his usual lackies advocating for war, and that tends to be a good sign that the Republican talking points have been spread out. Which usually comes from him (or at least his org; I see no reason to separate the two). I think one way or another it is clear that Trump's team is actively pushing for conflict, even if Trump himself is all about polls. 

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yemen? Yes, absolutely 100%. Afghanistan and Iraq? Maybe. Syria? Probably about the same. But Yemen - especailly with congress (and people like Tim Kaine) supporting our withdrawal from it, I don't see how Clinton wants that or goes along with it. 

And I think that anything that is promoting more military outcomes is certainly being more hawkish on the military. That is one of the difference between Trump and most politicians - he doesn't understand these kinds of cause and effects and doesn't care. 

I think it's difficult to game out what Clinton would be doing about Yemen.  But it that's the best ya got, sure, ok.  As for the "military outcomes being more hawkish," that's a fair point and completely agree about the difference between Trump and regular politicians.  It's really just a semantic debate, which I assume you don't care about.

13 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I've seen a lot of his usual lackies advocating for war, and that tends to be a good sign that the Republican talking points have been spread out. Which usually comes from him (or at least his org; I see no reason to separate the two). I think one way or another it is clear that Trump's team is actively pushing for conflict, even if Trump himself is all about polls. 

Again, I just view this more of a reflection of the fact he's a GOP president.  There have been aspects of the party pushing for more conflict my entire adult life, and really since the start of the Cold War.  It is concerning that now that faction of the party has the levers of powers in terms of official positions, but that's just because the very few reasonable people willing to work for him already got fed up and ousted.  One could see this coming.  Guess that means we should be on "heightened alert," but as you said, Trump has no doctrine on war.  That suggests that faction doesn't have anymore influence on his decision-making than any other intraparty faction (and there's a growing isolationist/non-interventionist strain in the GOP the past decade).

[Darzin]

This is what I meant by defacto open borders. No one says we want open borders but there are people arguing against having detainment camps on principle both here and on r/politics if we can't detain people who enter the US without  visa then we have open borders. It's not the camps existence that is immoral it's how they are run.

[Larry of the Lawn]

13 minutes ago, Darzin said:

This is what I meant by defacto open borders. No one says we want open borders but there are people arguing against having detainment camps on principle both here and on r/politics if we can't detain people who enter the US without  visa then we have open borders. It's not the camps existence that is immoral it's how they are run.

Tying this into @Triskeles original post on the topic, yes the devil is in the details, but if this hypothetical "vague" Dem policy is taking cues from how the Trump administration or Joe Arpaio would do things, I'm still 100% not voting for this person.  There are a million different ways to have a secure border and not treat refugees like criminals (who also shouldn't be treated the way they are or on such a scale but that's another topic).  

 

[Kalbear]

24 minutes ago, Darzin said:

This is what I meant by defacto open borders. No one says we want open borders but there are people arguing against having detainment camps on principle both here and on r/politics if we can't detain people who enter the US without  visa then we have open borders. It's not the camps existence that is immoral it's how they are run.

Uh, no. 

You do not need camps in order to detain people, and you do not need to detain people in order to have a border policy. This is an absurd false equivalence that doesn't take more than a couple of seconds to defeat. 

No one is saying that we cannot detain ANYONE who enters the US without authorization. What is being stated is that for the vast majority of people who are here without authorization, we can do things like, well, not detain them. There is no need to detain children with their parents most of the time. There is no need to detain most asylum seekers, as something like 98% of them show up for their court dates on time and as ordered. 

Doing things like house arrest with sensors is cheaper, easier, far more humane, and is just as effective. 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Again, I just view this more of a reflection of the fact he's a GOP president.  There have been aspects of the party pushing for more conflict my entire adult life, and really since the start of the Cold War. 

That's fine, but that's Trump's default operating position, and the notion that he has been less hawkish than Clinton would have been is belied simply by him being a 'default GOP POTUS'. 

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

That's fine, but that's Trump's default operating position, and the notion that he has been less hawkish than Clinton would have been is belied simply by him being a 'default GOP POTUS'. 

Well, I suppose that's fair to an extent.  But I guess my point was more that Clinton was particularly hawkish herself - and thus as a Dem nominee.  Much more so even than her husband.  And there is clear evidence that Clinton would be more hawkish on Syria, at the least.  Like this:

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

But the idea that he'll be able to stage a coup because he has large support - or even "infiltrated" - the military and law enforcement is just willful fantasy.  

First, this was what I was referencing with this part. I've seen several variations of similar stories. Second, I did not intend to imply that it would be successful over the long run. Just that Trump is crazy enough to consider it. It's the reason why I was telling people to stop rooting for him in the primaries. He has no respect for norms. Would I love waking up to read the news about President Rubio, or JEB!, or hell even Cruz? No, but I wouldn't have been worrying much either. Trump is different. 

[Ormond]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Mostly, I think Trump's doctrine of no war is entirely fictitious. He has no disciplined doctrine. He has no specific goals in mind. It's whatever his gut says. If he sees kids get gassed, he'll send some missiles to hit Syria. Not because he threatened to do so or it makes sense to, but because he feels bad for those kids. If he feels like war with Iran is the right thing to do, he'll do it. Has he done that yet? Honestly, I have no idea, and neither do you - but he could announce tomorrow that we're doing strikes on Iran and Shanahan resigned because of it, and that wouldn't be remotely surprising. 

I agree with the first five sentences of the above paragraph. Then you lose me, because I find it really hard to believe someone as narcissistic as Trump does anything because he "feels bad for those kids."  I don't think there's any way he can identify enough with some kids in Syria he doesn't know personally to "feel bad" for them. 

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

I'm pretty sure Marshal Law is the next Dick Wolf procedural.

Anyway, I know this board has to express its anxiety about Trump refusing to leave office every few months.  And that's good, it's like talk therapy.  But the idea that he'll be able to stage a coup because he has large support - or even "infiltrated" - the military and law enforcement is just willful fantasy.  Do active duty members tend to support Trump more than the general public?  Yes, although it trends pretty closely to his overall approval.  Are there neo-nazis in the military and law enforcement?  Sure, that's called probability.  But in terms of the military, you know who doesn't like Trump?  The officers:

Couple that with the fact that, as @Zorral noted, he can't even find someone to run the Pentagon, and the idea that he could exact a military junta is manifestly farcical.  Then lets look at law enforcement.  You mean like the FBI that he's waged war with to an unprecedented degree basically since taking office?  Or the intelligence community, who he only berates on occasion?  To stage a coup, you need the support of institutional elites.  Trump explicitly ran against institutional elites, and has been damn true to his word in that regard. 

The logic that Trump has the capability to deny an election result or refuse to hold an election based on his support from the military and law enforcement is wholly and decidedly ass-backwards.  Now, will he whine about the result if he loses and decry it as illegitimate?  Of Fucking Course.  But his avenue is much more likely to be to take it to court.  That's his MO - suing people - not being competent enough to stage a coup by harnessing the most well-funded and complex security organization in the world.

As for the tanker attacks being another Gulf of Tonkin, gimme a break.  On the night of the "second attack," LBJ went on national television to saber-rattle.  Where is Trump on this if that was his intent?  He'd be whining about this on twitter every morning at 4am.  Instead he's whining about Fox News polls.  Do Pompeo and Bolton have a hard on for a war in Iran?  Duh, they both have their entire careers.  But their employ is more a reflection of the fact nobody else is willing to work for him, not that Trump is really interested in starting a war. 

That's not to say Trump won't wag the dog eventually - if he suspects he's gonna lose I could totally see him ginning something up, and he almost certainly will do so at least IRT tweeting like an idiot.  But one could make the argument that he ran as the less hawkish candidate compared to Clinton.  And, really, he hasn't done anything militarily in two and a half years to think that's changed.  When there's evidence that's changed, yeah, the opposition should be vigilant against it.  But until then you're just worrying for worrying's sake.  Doctors tell me that's not helpful.

Y R living in fantasylandia.

No one can make any predictions about this insane person because insane isn't rational and rational people can't think like irrational people.  The only thing one can predict about him is that he will damn the torpedoes and go the whole distance of burning it all down because that's what an irrational person does.  That rational people can't understand that means -- they are in denial of where we are at in terms of party and democracy and all the rest of our truly irrational world.

[Larry of the Lawn]

3 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Y R living in fantasylandia.

No one can make any predictions about this insane person because insane isn't rational and rational people can't think like irrational people.  The only thing one can predict about him is that he will damn the torpedoes and go the whole distance of burning it all down because that's what an irrational person does.  That rational people can't understand that means -- they are in denial of where we are at in terms of party and democracy and all the rest of our truly irrational world.

And yet, a bunch of rational people have made some pretty accurate predictions about how a Trump presidency would go, or how he'd respond to various situations.  

And most of that post was about how other people (military specifically) respond to Trump.  So not really seeing the fantasy aspect of it

[DMC]

30 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Y R living in fantasylandia.

I always preferred Frontierland at Magic Kingdom when I lived in Orlando.  Got Thunder Railroad and Splash Mountain.  But around the world at Epcot is where it's really at anyway.

[ThinkerX]

10 hours ago, Paladin of Ice said:

More or less nasty than the apocalyptic predictions we were hearing from you over a dozen years ago about how society was on the edge of imminent collapse because oil was running out?

Honestly, a major migratory issue could be on the way, but there are so many moving parts at work, (how are the effects of climate change actually going to play out, what is going to be the political and social situations in Central American countries with crime, corruption, politics, etc.) that trying to predict it ahead of time is a fool's game. I don't trust anyone to be clairvoyant enough to accurately foresee the outcome of it all.

Personally, I think if a major migration crisis comes to pass trying to resist it will be counterproductive and futile, (as it is now, every time Trump says he's going to get real tough on closing the border or building the wall, smugglers turn around and tell migrants and refugees "See, you gotta get across the border now before they put this change into effect!" which is one of the reasons why we're seeing a big increase in border crossings) I'd rather welcome them in and legally put them to work.

Unfortunately, I don't know how you sell such a policy to the country, all too many of whom are threatened by immigrants who have a darker skin tone and don't speak English as their first language, so much so that people will simultaneously believe that immigrants are stealing their jobs and are too lazy to work without seeing the contradiction inherent there.

Ah, you remember my long ago posts on Peak Oil.  Still a thing, by the way; slowed down by energy efficiency and green energy, but still happening.  

 

Perhaps you also remember I was expressing grave concern about an impending financial meltdown in early 2007, or how I claimed Trump stood a significant chance of winning the presidency in early 2015.

 

All I did here was point out this climate change thing gets bad enough, those most affected are going to go elsewhere.  Arguably, this has already been happening in some parts of the world.  Given the projected scale of the disaster - even from those expressing glimmers of optimism - this is at least potentially one hell of a lot of people clamoring for entry into the US.