US Politics: Ruthless ambition

[Fez]

11 minutes ago, Starkess said:

What you're advocating for is anarchy and a civil war. Perhaps you think we're at that point. But I think you will find the vast majority of people do not.

If Biden wins the popular vote +7 and the Supreme Court hands Trump the electoral college, I think you'll be surprised at just how far people will be willing to take things.

[Starkess]

Just now, Fez said:

If Biden wins the popular vote +7 and the Supreme Court hands Trump the electoral college, I think you'll be surprised at just how far people will be willing to take things.

I find that scenario to be extremely unlikely. But yes, I agree that might change the calculus. But sitting here now and making scathing remarks that the Dems "continually" follow the law is ridiculous.

And please, I never said anything about not rocking the boat. Rock the fucking boat! But no, I'm not currently interested in a revolution.

[DMC]

45 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Or maybe politicians already have and a plurality of the public just doesn't care for whatever reason.

Why do you keep saying a "plurality" are nonvoters.  Are you treating nonvoters like a political party, i.e. comparing GOP voters, Dem voters, and nonvoters?  Cuz that's a pretty strange thing to do.  VEP turnout the last four presidential cycles has been around 60%, and it hasn't been below 50% in a presidential cycle since 1824.  

As for our comparatively low turnout rate, this is government 101 - yes, we have low turnout rates when comparing the overall population, but that's because registration rates are so low.  When you calculate turnout by number of registered voters, US turnout ranks among the highest in the world - at 86.8% in 2016:

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In many countries, the government takes the lead in getting people’s names on the rolls – whether by registering them automatically once they become eligible (as in, for example, Sweden or Germany) or by aggressively seeking out and registering eligible voters (as in the UK and Australia). As a result, turnout looks pretty similar regardless of whether you’re looking at voting-age population or registered voters.

In the U.S., by contrast, registration is mainly an individual responsibility. And registered voters represent a much smaller share of potential voters in the U.S. than just about any other OECD country. Only about 64% of the U.S. voting-age population (and 70% of voting-age citizens) was registered in 2016, according to the Census Bureau report, compared with 91% in Canada (2015) and the UK (2017), 96% in Sweden (2014), and 99% in Slovakia (2016).

As a consequence, turnout comparisons based only on registered voters may not be very meaningful. For instance, U.S. turnout in 2016 was 86.8% of registered voters, fourth-highest among OECD countries (and highest among those without compulsory voting). But registered voters in the U.S. are much more of a self-selected group, already more likely to vote because they took the trouble to register themselves.

The solution, obviously, is to make registration - and voting - easier, hence the decades-long push for reforms such as same day registration and, of course, vote by mail.

Finally, is the American electorate stupid?  Sure, I suppose, but so is every other electorate.  A person is smart, people are stupid.  The Russians must be morons - only having democracy last about a decade before allowing Putin to takeover.  The Chinese much be complete idiots for letting Mao enact his cultural revolution.  The Brazilians are just as dumb as us for electing Bolsonaro.  Etcetera, etcetera.

40 minutes ago, Fez said:

But I'd love it if Trump's nominee straight up said at the hearings "Roe v. Wade is settled law and I will not vote to overturn it." just to see the shitstorm that would occur after all these Republicans said they'd vote for whoever Trump put up.

He'd just withdraw the nomination.

[Kalbear]

28 minutes ago, Starkess said:

Um, yes? I'm sorry, I don't follow this logic. SCOTUS shouldn't be binding because you think the judges have a political preference that is affecting their rulings? I'm not trying to "both sides" here, but that is basically exactly like Republican rhetoric and I damn well expect them to comply with the SCOTUS rulings they don't like.

Yes, I think that when the law is decided unjustly the populace needs to act with more than just a shrug.

28 minutes ago, Starkess said:

Illegal activities should be stopped. We need to do better at holding people accountable for breaking laws and ignoring House subpoenas etc. We need to establish laws for things that turned out just to be important norms. We need to fight at every level to get smart, compassionate, and dedicated people elected into government. We even need to amend the damn Constitution if the original text is senseless. But yes, in the meantime, I do plan to accept SCOTUS rulings. 

Good for you. The rest of your plans are completely untenable and will not happen. Meanwhile they're literally planning on nominating a justice who belongs to a society which literally inspired Atwood's Handmaid's tale. 

28 minutes ago, Starkess said:

What you're advocating for is anarchy and a civil war. Perhaps you think we're at that point. But I think you will find the vast majority of people do not.

I agree that the vast majority do not. I also believe that this is precisely the problem; that the populace is happily willing to accept rulings that make the country authoritarian. 

 

15 minutes ago, Starkess said:

I find that scenario to be extremely unlikely. But yes, I agree that might change the calculus. But sitting here now and making scathing remarks that the Dems "continually" follow the law is ridiculous.

Gore decided to not protest the worst decision in electoral law in 100 years because to him, not rocking the boat and putting the country into some chaos was more important. 

15 minutes ago, Starkess said:

And please, I never said anything about not rocking the boat. Rock the fucking boat! But no, I'm not currently interested in a revolution.

Who advocated a revolution?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

So no Commandante Che MC shirts and posters then?

[Kalbear]

13 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So no Commandante Che MC shirts and posters then?

I want a poster with him saying that he's deeply concerned

[DMC]

Interesting that Collins came out with a firmer statement opposing any vote on a nominee before the election shortly after Romney came out for a vote.  Wonder if there's some logrolling there so Collins can stay in the middle without pissing the GOP off (since her opposition is meaningless).

[A Horse Named Stranger]

4 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

I want a poster with him saying that he's deeply concerned

Obama has a copyright on that phrase, I am afraid.

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

Interesting that Collins came out with a firmer statement opposing any vote on a nominee before the election shortly after Romney came out for a vote.  Wonder if there's some logrolling there so Collins can stay in the middle without pissing the GOP off (since her opposition is meaningless).

Isn't that obvious? Not that it will make a difference (hopefully). The Democrats in Maine have done a pretty good job tying her to Kavanaugh and Trump. So her not voting on a GOP nominee should not save her neck. Talking about the former...

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hell, why do you think all these elected Ivy League lawyers talk like junior high students?

Because they like beer. They like beer a lot...more than what would be healthy.

[Larry of the Lawn]

8 minutes ago, DMC said:

Interesting that Collins came out with a firmer statement opposing any vote on a nominee before the election shortly after Romney came out for a vote.  Wonder if there's some logrolling there so Collins can stay in the middle without pissing the GOP off (since her opposition is meaningless).

Hope it doesn't work as well for her as it worked for Manchin.

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Isn't that obvious? Not that it will make a difference (hopefully).

I don't know if you can just assume vote trading, or that it's "obvious," that's a pretty classic post hoc fallacy.  But yeah, I'm hopeful it won't make a difference - if only because her approval ratings are so low that's too deep of a hole to climb out of.

4 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Hope it doesn't work as well for her as it worked for Manchin.

Indeed.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Why do you keep saying a "plurality" are nonvoters.  Are you treating nonvoters like a political party, i.e. comparing GOP voters, Dem voters, and nonvoters?  Cuz that's a pretty strange thing to do.  VEP turnout the last four presidential cycles has been around 60%, and it hasn't been below 50% in a presidential cycle since 1824.  

No, I'm grouping them by their behavior, not any kind of ideology. 

Quote

The solution, obviously, is to make registration - and voting - easier, hence the decades-long push for reforms such as same day registration and, of course, vote by mail.

There shouldn't even be a need to register, it should be automatic once one turns 18.

Quote

Finally, is the American electorate stupid?  Sure, I suppose, but so is every other electorate.  A person is smart, people are stupid.  The Russians must be morons - only having democracy last about a decade before allowing Putin to takeover.  The Chinese much be complete idiots for letting Mao enact his cultural revolution.  The Brazilians are just as dumb as us for electing Bolsonaro.  Etcetera, etcetera.

The first two examples are a bit apples to oranges. Anyways, a better comparison would be the average American verse the average person in Western Europe, and it's my understanding that Europeans tend to be more knowledgeable and informed across the board, though the gap isn't as large as many Europeans think. 

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

No, I'm grouping them by their behavior, not any kind of ideology. 

I don't understand then.  A majority of eligible voters do vote during presidential cycles, and have for two hundred years.

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

There shouldn't even be a need to register, it should be automatic once one turns 18.

Agreed, but same-day and vote-by-mail are actually already enacted in certain states.  Automatic registration is not, however, 18 states have automatic registration through certain agencies, mostly the DMV (and Alaska does through their PDF) - although, obviously, you still have to go to the DMV.

17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Anyways, a better comparison would be the average American verse the average person in Western Europe

Why?  I guess you could say the US electorate should be compared to other developed democracies, but that's entirely blatant selection bias already.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

16 minutes ago, DMC said:

I don't understand then.  A majority of eligible voters do vote during presidential cycles, and have for two hundred years.

But again, based on behavior, none of the above vastly outpaces any party. That's not ideal for a healthy, functioning democracy.

 

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Why?  I guess you could say the US electorate should be compared to other developed democracies, but that's entirely blatant selection bias already.

Yeah, but it's still better than comparing completely different systems. 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

But again, based on behavior, none of the above vastly outpaces any party. That's not ideal for a healthy, functioning democracy.

So, then you are splitting it up by comparing nonvoters to each party, which is what I said to begin with - and is a decidedly strange way to split things up bereft of any valid basis.

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Yeah, but it's still better than comparing completely different systems. 

If your assertion is that the US is descending into authoritarianism because of the stupidity of the American electorate, your unit of analysis should include governments that are authoritarian.  Limiting your sample to the most democratic countries is just circular logic.  Regardless, even if you were just to compare the US to western European companies, the US is still far from unique in the rise of authoritarian sentiment among electorates over the past quarter century.

[Gaston de Foix]

It's a done deal.  The Trump trio (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett) will dominate the Supreme Court for many years to come.  

The Senate Dems will not have the numbers for Court packing.  And it's also a bad idea substantively. 

If there is a silver lining, it is the utter bad faith of the Republican caucus will galvanize the usually pusillanimous Democrats. 

We can hope for is a package of political and judicial reforms that includes a mandatory retirement age for federal judges and mandatory ethics obligations.  Automatic voter registration, election day a federal holiday, abolish gerrymandering.  Then Biden and Congress should do gun reform, immigration reform, climate change.  Just get shit done.  Fuck bipartisanship, fuck deliberation and especially fuck Lindsay Graham. 

Congress should also pass a law legalizing abortion. This will not stop the Court from overturning Roe or even overturning laws passed by Congress on federalism/commerce clause/ 2nd amendment grounds.  But it will make clear to the whole country that we now have an ideologically committed judiciary.  The Trump trio will rush in where O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Stevens and even Roberts feared to tread. 

Reversing the damage of the Trump era will take decades.  

Finally, even as I loathe the Republicans, I think Obama and RBG both deserve a fair share of blame for her not retiring to between 2012-4.  This was a live risk both ignored and the country will suffer for it.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, DMC said:

So, then you are splitting it up by comparing nonvoters to each party, which is what I said to begin with - and is a decidedly strange way to split things up bereft of any valid basis.

Yes it does. A lot can be learned from studying the differences between people who don't vote and those that do for a specific party. 

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If your assertion is that the US is descending into authoritarianism because of the stupidity of the American electorate, your unit of analysis should include governments that are authoritarian.  Limiting your sample to the most democratic countries is just circular logic.  Regardless, even if you were just to compare the US to western European companies, the US is still far from unique in the rise of authoritarian sentiment among electorates over the past quarter century.

Authoritarianism is the worst outcome, but complete dysfunction is well within sight. And why would comparing governments of countries with vastly different cultures and histories be more helpful than tracking ones that are more similar and are precisely experiencing said slide at the same time? 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Yes it does. A lot can be learned from studying the differences between people who don't vote and those that do for a specific party. 

If you wanna compare nonvoters to Democratic voters, or nonvoters to Republican voters, sure that's interesting.  But by claiming "a plurality" doesn't vote because you're splitting up voters into two parties that split the voting population basically in half is simply disingenuous.  Consider the implications.  Let's say, a country has 75% turnout - good but not great.  But also has a multiparty system of five evenly matched parties.  Then, you could say that nonvoters outnumber the voters of any one party, but that says absolutely nothing about the health of that country's democracy.

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And why would comparing governments of countries with vastly different cultures and histories be more helpful than tracking ones that are more similar and are precisely experiencing said slide at the same time? 

Because of what I said.  If your assertion is the American electorate's stupidity is causing its descent into authoritarianism or dysfunction (which is quite obviously generated from the institutional makeup of the US system, not the electorate), then solely comparing the US to the most democratic countries in the world is circular logic due to blatant selection bias.  And why is your standard that you can't compare countries with vastly different cultures and histories?  Members of the OECD include Chile, Israel, Turkey, and South Korea - obviously all with vastly different cultures and histories.  Should they be disqualified?  Moreover, the United States has significant differences in culture and history than even all western European countries depending on what "differences" you're looking at.

[GrimTuesday]

Talking about how dumb and shitty the electorate is part of the problem. People are so convinced that there is nothing that can be done to get those voters that there is barely any outreach being done these days to those communities, and the outreach that is being done is halfhearted and not particularly effective.

Something like 45% of voting age people did not vote in 2016. even if you could take 1% of that 45% did not vote in 2016 that is over a million votes, and I honestly think that if you actually speak to the needs of those people, it will get them invested ibe way or another.

People don't not vote for the fun of it, there are systemic barriers, but also they feel alienated from the political process for a myriad of reason including feeling like their views are not being represented. Obviously not all of those votes would go to Democrats, but I'd guess that a significant portion of them would of you actually speak about the shit that actually matters to them. Populism and mass mobilization works, and we can't just give up on it. 

 

As an aside, if the Democrats do decide to pack the court, is that something that could be challenged in court? There is no way that that would make it through a hearing due to the will to maintain power.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

9 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

My mom started voting Dem in her 50s.  My grandma started in her 80s.  I know plenty of college educated people who don't vote.  It's not about being dumb, it's about being skeptical of the value of voting, voting on one or two issues, or the idea that special interests and the MIC actually run things.  

Who can blame them when one or two states decide the election, Wyoming gets the same senatorial representation as NY, and corporations are people?  Telling people they are dumb and misinformed is a shitty and way to get them to do what you want, and condescending as hell.

If they are so dumb it should be easy to get them to do what you want.

If you have as large of a nonvoting population as we do you'd think that some candidate out there could figure out a way to get them to vote.  Maybe actually talk about what you're going to do to make their lives better instead of berating them about their lack of participation in a super-flawed system with lame platitudes.

It's a definite elite bias in liberal groups where they degrade people and kind of act like, "you were once a Republican? Fuck you forever!" I know a lot of really good people that came around late in life, and they became really good allies. 

I mean, these people who run for office and write off so many people as unengaged and unintelligent are the same people that would tell me, if I were still teaching in public school, that no matter how unengaged your students are, no matter how far behind they are--no child is left behind. They all have to race to the top. They should practice what they preach. 

(The Senate needs to die and never be resurrected, btw!)

[Centrist Simon Steele]

9 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Oh, great - more prophets of doom - just what we need at this time. Seriously, all these doomsday scenarios about USA turning into Orban's Hungary or worse, Hitler's Germany are laughable to anyone who knows anything about the latter two.

Hungary, for example, is not a two-party system like the US - yet Orban's party alone holds two thirds of the parliament. It's a also country with virtually no left-wing opposition - most popular lefty party got miserable 12% of votes in the last elections (seriously, Orban's most popular opposition is another far-right party). It's a country with pretty young and not fully developed democratic institutions - not unexpected given how it's been de facto independent for only last 30 years or so. It's a country where president managed to establish effective mechanism to control the courts (no, not just Supreme Court, but all the judges and courts). It's a country which suffered for almost half a century under what is basically communist dictatorship, causing pendulum to violently swing back in opposite direction (i.e. Orban's far right). Take all of this into account, and more - and ask yourself if any of this is applicable to US today. Fortunately, the answer is no - and the comparisons to Nazi Germany are even less applicable.

So, what will happen if Trump wins another 4 years? Not much. Nobody here will emigrate in panic. Gates to Hell will not open.  Four Riders of Apocalpyse will stay put. True, America will suffer four more years of deranged and ridiculously incompetent president, but it will hardly be the first country to do so. There will still be strong opposition in form of media, citizens' organizations and House of Representatives, occasionally managing to block some of his most dangerous ideas. And after 4 years, his mandate will be over, whether he likes it or not. In few more decades he won't be remembered at all, except as one of biggest blunders in a history of democratic world. Ffs, America has survived two world wars, several horrific economic depressions, Cold war and nuclear crisis - have some faith it will survive one charlatanic demagague.

This is literally life and death for some people--people in this thread have expressed as much. For you the world isn't ending, but for lots of people it might.