US Politics - Term of surrender? Or is it wise to follow the Dumpty?

[James Arryn]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

Sorry for the double post, but huh I didn't really think about this until right now - the Iowa caucus is going to be the day after the Super Bowl.  The general expectation remains very high turnout, but that seems like dumb scheduling.  Why not hold it on Tuesday instead?

I suspect a conspiracy. An AFC conspiracy.

[DMC]

Fucking Mahomes.

[maarsen]

38 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Last I checked Biden was still far ahead of anyone else in head to head vs. Trump polls, as unappetizing as that is. There are moments when I think that’s all that really matters.

 

FB- Might as we’ll be married, and not so much moving in...we’ve lived together for ages...but moved out of the house we shared with the other 5 girls. Gonna be a dad...feel distinctly unqualified. 

Everyone starts out unqualified as a dad. You learn on the job. 

[James Arryn]

11 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Everyone starts out unqualified as a dad. You learn on the job. 

Appreciated. But I have honestly carved out an incredibly self-centred lifestyle...I think my adjustment might be above the curve. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

13 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I forgot to get to something from last week. @DMC and @Mlle. Zabzie, I believe it was you discussing revolutions and debating if they worked in 20 or 80 year cycles. How familiar are you two with the Strauss-Howe generational theory, better known as The Fourth Turning. I hate agreeing with Bannon on anything, but I once heard him mention this and it makes an interesting point. Basically it argues that you were both right, that giant cycles work on roughly 80-90 year trend lines marked by a major historical event (Revolutionary War, Civil War, WW 2 and now theoretically), and that within them there are four 20-22 year turns, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Each season marks the trend of that 20 year cycle, rebirth, blossoming, decay and death. It's largely seen as pseudoscience, but still, it's interesting.

Oh, anything in history or political science is pseudoscience (also economics, but I digress :D).  I'm not that familiar with the theory (last poli sci class I took was in 1995 and was so disillusioned that I took a hard turn into economics, which, interestingly enough, has led my overall political views to take a gently curving leftward drift).  I'm not a huge believer in "generations" per se, at least as described by sociology.  That said, I think you can construct a narrative that feels true (which is different than BEING true) that is constructed as you suggest.  Mind you, I would say it was either the depression or the depression + WW2 that created the last seismic shift, but still.  And under that theory, the 2008 financial crisis is maybe the next turning point?  Or maybe it is just that I'm in my 40s now and am cognitively able to appreciate more or life's uncertainties?  Hard to say.

 

@James Arryn twin girls are the best.  Mine are almost 10.  Congrats!

[Paladin of Ice]

23 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I told you the answer to this before.  The average American is lazy, dumb and simply doesn’t care. Most people I try to talk politics with outside of the political world want nothing to do with the conversation. Apathy will be the downfall of the Republic.

This kinda touches on something I've been thinking about lately, so I want to take a moment to expound a bit. I've seen a lot of online progressives argue passionately in favor of getting non-voters to vote, and they're right, we absolutely should. However I think that among many people who are advocating for this, (often at the expense of all other potential courses of action) there's an unspoken, implicit assumption that non-voters are an army of potential leftists who will think and will vote just like them. And there are all sorts of non-voters who don't vote for very different reasons, and some of them will make pretty natural allies with the causes of leftists. (Keep in mind though that some of the leftist non-voters are absolutely nutbags, like tankies who think Bernie is a warmongering sellout to the mainstream.)

However, while this may just be my biases, when I think of the dominant bloc of non-voters, I don't think of some oppressed, marginalized class or race who are sophisticated about politics or the issues of race or the LGBTQ+ community. If they were like that, odds are they'd be involved and doing something already instead of being so determined to sit on the sidelines.

What I think of is someone who is aggressively apathetic and "both sides!!!1!" every potential issue. The kind whose response to anything Trump does is to shrug and say "They all do it" no matter how much evidence you throw their way showing that nobody has done this kind of stuff before. When I try to think of the average non-voter in America, I picture the kind of person who downs bags of chips on their couch while talking shit about pro athletes, whose first association with trans people and issues is always to think of men dressing up like women to either trick people into sex or to have an easy way to win sports competitions, (female to male transgender people is a concept that blows their minds, never mind being non-binary, genderqueer/fluid, or not identifying with a gender at all) the kind of person who's much more bothered by fun nazi SJWs who talk about racism than they are about actual racism, partially because they don't have to deal with racism, and partially because their mind often goes "Look, I'm not racist, but <insert your choice of minority group here> really is kinda like <insert relevant stereotype here>." The kind of person who gets a lot more irked about the thought of having to be PC if their social circle at work gets broken up by someone who's non-white (or not male, depending on the workplace in question) than they do by the person in H.R. who coincidentally "has a bad feeling" about every black or brown man who interviews there and puts all their resumes in the reject pile.

Should you still strive to represent them? Yeah, government should represent all of the people of a country. Can they be swung to our side? Some, maybe, but it will take a shit ton more work than just walking up to someone and pestering them to register to get a reliable ally. At least as much work as convincing a lot of the moderates and centrists that I tend to see online only progressives despair of before they even try to make a pitch to them.

Oh, and I also want to comment how amusing it's been to see certain "hardcore" progressives who castigate everyone else for compromising or not adopt 100% of the the progressive agenda (like that no good cop Kamala Harris) now consider Michael FUCKING Bloomberg as a candidate. Y'know, the Michael Bloomberg who was a registered Republican until it became a dirty word in New York, and then became an independent. The Michael Bloomberg who spied on mosques as a mayor of NYC, even those well outside his jurisdiction, because you can't be too careful about all those potential terrorists. The Michael Bloomberg whose "Stop and Frisk" program would literally stop and frisk more black males in a single year than the total population of black males living in NYC. The Michael Bloomberg who said last fall that the U.S. would become Venezuela if it elected Sanders or Warren.

I'm going to have think of a catchy acronym for that. PINO (Progressive in Name Only) just doesn't have the right ring to it.

[IheartIheartTesla]

2 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Last I checked Biden was still far ahead of anyone else in head to head vs. Trump polls, as unappetizing as that is. There are moments when I think that’s all that really matters.

The RCP average has him at +4.5 ish, Sanders +3 and Warren +1. But, as we've discussed on this board often, its very difficult to extrapolate those out to November since no one knows what the ultimate voter composition will be yet, and there may be externalities that affect this number too.

From the imperfect data we have so far there doesn't seem to be much between the different candidates.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Oh, anything in history or political science is pseudoscience

Hey now!  Them's fighting words.

36 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

From the imperfect data we have so far there doesn't seem to be much between the different candidates.

Yep.

42 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

What I think of is someone who is aggressively apathetic and "both sides!!!1!" every potential issue. The kind whose response to anything Trump does is to shrug and say "They all do it" no matter how much evidence you throw their way showing that nobody has done this kind of stuff before.

Mark Prior described this here years ago.  The "disaffected" non-voters tend to be the ones in the middle that share antipathy and apathy for both parties.  That's his explanation for the rise in polarization, that when this bloc checked out, you're inherently going to get a more partisan composition of the electorate.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, DMC said:

Fucking Mahomes.

That’s Patrick F***ing Mahomes to you, sir!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Oh, anything in history or political science is pseudoscience (also economics, but I digress :D).  I'm not that familiar with the theory (last poli sci class I took was in 1995 and was so disillusioned that I took a hard turn into economics, which, interestingly enough, has led my overall political views to take a gently curving leftward drift).  I'm not a huge believer in "generations" per se, at least as described by sociology.  That said, I think you can construct a narrative that feels true (which is different than BEING true) that is constructed as you suggest.  Mind you, I would say it was either the depression or the depression + WW2 that created the last seismic shift, but still.  And under that theory, the 2008 financial crisis is maybe the next turning point?  Or maybe it is just that I'm in my 40s now and am cognitively able to appreciate more or life's uncertainties?  Hard to say.

 

@James Arryn twin girls are the best.  Mine are almost 10.  Congrats!

Lol, macro, micro, intro to finance and accounting level 2 freshmen year made me run to psych and poli sci. I have never met a group of more boring people who lacked any sense of creativity. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

What blows me away are people using the “both sides” argument to justify and offer apologia for Trump’s abuses of power.  As though abuse of power by anyone in the office of President should be tolerated and expected.

It shouldn’t.  If a Democratic candidate wins the White House in 2020 and attempts to push agendas using the same arguments offered by Trump’s team I will maintain my objections.

[Raja]

I found this interesting & educational - and I like that it is a series of articles that are going to come out in the next week

 

[JGP]

1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

 

@James Arryn twin girls are the best.  Mine are almost 10.  Congrats!

Though I have two, and they're not twins-- girls are definitely the best. Grats, James.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Paladin of Ice said:

This kinda touches on something I've been thinking about lately, so I want to take a moment to expound a bit. I've seen a lot of online progressives argue passionately in favor of getting non-voters to vote, and they're right, we absolutely should. However I think that among many people who are advocating for this, (often at the expense of all other potential courses of action) there's an unspoken, implicit assumption that non-voters are an army of potential leftists who will think and will vote just like them. And there are all sorts of non-voters who don't vote for very different reasons, and some of them will make pretty natural allies with the causes of leftists. (Keep in mind though that some of the leftist non-voters are absolutely nutbags, like tankies who think Bernie is a warmongering sellout to the mainstream.)

However, while this may just be my biases, when I think of the dominant bloc of non-voters, I don't think of some oppressed, marginalized class or race who are sophisticated about politics or the issues of race or the LGBTQ+ community. If they were like that, odds are they'd be involved and doing something already instead of being so determined to sit on the sidelines.

What I think of is someone who is aggressively apathetic and "both sides!!!1!" every potential issue. The kind whose response to anything Trump does is to shrug and say "They all do it" no matter how much evidence you throw their way showing that nobody has done this kind of stuff before. When I try to think of the average non-voter in America, I picture the kind of person who downs bags of chips on their couch while talking shit about pro athletes, whose first association with trans people and issues is always to think of men dressing up like women to either trick people into sex or to have an easy way to win sports competitions, (female to male transgender people is a concept that blows their minds, never mind being non-binary, genderqueer/fluid, or not identifying with a gender at all) the kind of person who's much more bothered by fun nazi SJWs who talk about racism than they are about actual racism, partially because they don't have to deal with racism, and partially because their mind often goes "Look, I'm not racist, but <insert your choice of minority group here> really is kinda like <insert relevant stereotype here>." The kind of person who gets a lot more irked about the thought of having to be PC if their social circle at work gets broken up by someone who's non-white (or not male, depending on the workplace in question) than they do by the person in H.R. who coincidentally "has a bad feeling" about every black or brown man who interviews there and puts all their resumes in the reject pile.

Should you still strive to represent them? Yeah, government should represent all of the people of a country. Can they be swung to our side? Some, maybe, but it will take a shit ton more work than just walking up to someone and pestering them to register to get a reliable ally. At least as much work as convincing a lot of the moderates and centrists that I tend to see online only progressives despair of before they even try to make a pitch to them.

Oh, and I also want to comment how amusing it's been to see certain "hardcore" progressives who castigate everyone else for compromising or not adopt 100% of the the progressive agenda (like that no good cop Kamala Harris) now consider Michael FUCKING Bloomberg as a candidate. Y'know, the Michael Bloomberg who was a registered Republican until it became a dirty word in New York, and then became an independent. The Michael Bloomberg who spied on mosques as a mayor of NYC, even those well outside his jurisdiction, because you can't be too careful about all those potential terrorists. The Michael Bloomberg whose "Stop and Frisk" program would literally stop and frisk more black males in a single year than the total population of black males living in NYC. The Michael Bloomberg who said last fall that the U.S. would become Venezuela if it elected Sanders or Warren.

I'm going to have think of a catchy acronym for that. PINO (Progressive in Name Only) just doesn't have the right ring to it.

I almost never engage with friends of friends on FB when talking politics, but an interaction last night encapsulated it perfectly.  A guy, claiming to be a true independent, said it didn’t matter if Trump was guilty of everything he’s accused of because Democrats and liberals are whiny and he never wants to see them win.

[Fez]

In other news, the Trump administration is now allowing states to convert their Medicaid funding to a block grant through a CMS waiver. Block granting Medicaid is a terrible idea that Republicans have been pushing since at least the '80s that achieves nothing but cutting health care spending on the poor. It's also not clear if there's any legal authority to do this without Congress (not that that matters with the way the courts are now).

The one positive is that this is an optional waiver, meaning its on the states to have to seek it out. It's hard to imagine that many states will voluntarily take cuts to their Federal funding. Yes, a lot of Republican states refused new funding from Obamacare, but it's easier to refuse new funding than it is to cut old funding. And its not clear how many states will directly hurt themselves just to make Trump happy. Like when the administration let states refuse to settle new refugees, and Texas was the only state to do so. All the other Republican governors turned him down.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, Fez said:

In other news, the Trump administration is now allowing states to convert their Medicaid funding to a block grant through a CMS waiver. Block granting Medicaid is a terrible idea that Republicans have been pushing since at least the '80s that achieves nothing but cutting health care spending on the poor. It's also not clear if there's any legal authority to do this without Congress (not that that matters with the way the courts are now).

The one positive is that this is an optional waiver, meaning its on the states to have to seek it out. It's hard to imagine that many states will voluntarily take cuts to their Federal funding. Yes, a lot of Republican states refused new funding from Obamacare, but it's easier to refuse new funding than it is to cut old funding. And its not clear how many states will directly hurt themselves just to make Trump happy. Like when the administration let states refuse to settle new refugees, and Texas was the only state to do so. All the other Republican governors turned him down.

But Fez, how can this be? These people claim to be pro-life and love Jesus. How could they ever hurt the poor??? It’s like Vader being Luke’s father. It’s not true!!! That’s impossible!!!!!

(worth noting that nearly everything in the Republican platform is aggressively anti-life)

[Maithanet]

23 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I’m only going by my gut, but I think there’s a decent chance that either Pete or Amy have a shockingly good result, and I think they believe it too, hence why they are going after one another a lot. Last poll I saw had like 40% undecided, and if you’re not already with Biden or Bernie, you’re probably picking someone else, and I think Warren has already ceilinged out.

If Pete wins Iowa, he's still probably going to lose NH, and definitely going to lose SC and NV.  So it's pretty hard to see an IA win for Buttigieg leading to the nomination.  Maybe there's a faint path for him if winning IA gives him a boost to a strong showing in NH, but that is a lot of IFs. 

For Amy it is even worse, she's polling nowhere at all in the next three states.  If she somehow pulled out Iowa, it would just be another meaningless Iowa vote, like that time they backed Santorum for some reason. 

Really the only candidate that seems to have a realistic shot at the nomination outside Biden/Sanders is Warren and her polls in IA and NH are moving in the wrong direction. 

[Fez]

37 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

If Pete wins Iowa, he's still probably going to lose NH, and definitely going to lose SC and NV.  So it's pretty hard to see an IA win for Buttigieg leading to the nomination.  Maybe there's a faint path for him if winning IA gives him a boost to a strong showing in NH, but that is a lot of IFs. 

For Amy it is even worse, she's polling nowhere at all in the next three states.  If she somehow pulled out Iowa, it would just be another meaningless Iowa vote, like that time they backed Santorum for some reason. 

Really the only candidate that seems to have a realistic shot at the nomination outside Biden/Sanders is Warren and her polls in IA and NH are moving in the wrong direction. 

This image feels very appropriate. Replace Jeb with any of the Democratic candidates as necessary.

[maarsen]

One thing that has not come up is that how many other Trump ex-staffers are busy putting down their experiences and thoughts to paper. I strongly doubt Bolton is the only one to do so as releasing such a book during an election campaign will help boost sales and generate hype. If I was Trump, I would be very nervous right now. 

[Fragile Bird]

I gather that two days ago it really looked like there might be witnesses but Moscow Mitch has leaned on folks so hard he’s got the votes to prevent that from happening.

It has truly been amazing to see how Trump has managed to change democracy in America.