US Politics: Killin' Ya Hard With Hate

[Martell Spy]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

All the electoral reform in the world won't fix the root problem: The American public. 

The American public voted Trump out.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

12 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

The American public voted Trump out.

That's like saying the American public deserves a gold star for being able to say their ABC's.

[Zorral]

They have gunz and They want to use them.

 

[Bironic]

17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That's like saying the American public deserves a gold star for being able to say their ABC's.

I live across an entire Ocean from the USA so maybe my insight into the american education system and the general public isn't so good. But with an electoral reform of just the US presidential election there would have been no George W. Bush (yes I know he won in 2004 fair and square) and no Donald Trump. Two of the worst presidents in US history. I am certainly not claiming that Al Gore or Hillary Clinton would have turned out to be the next FDR, but they would have been average, not great probably, but also not a disaster. And maybe they could have taken some small steps to better the general knowledge and education of the US citizenry.

[Martell Spy]

52 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That's like saying the American public deserves a gold star for being able to say their ABC's.

No, it's more complicated than that, but they could have just laid down and voted to turn America into a personal piggie bank for the Trump family. Certainly at that point the DOJ had laid down on the job and no one else was going to stop it. 

Obviously, right-wing primaries are a problem.

[Zorral]

Ho ho ho -- I'd missed this Raskin zinger:

“If the Republicans had a smoking gun or even a dripping water pistol, they would be presenting it today,” said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee. “But they’ve got nothing on Joe Biden.”

[Mindwalker]

Senator Feinstein has passed away.

[Fez]

3 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I’m just curious on how this will affect the senate judiciary  

Yeah, we'll have to see. Republicans had previously threatened to block Feinstein from stepping down from the committee and being replaced. But they didn't say what they would do if she died or retired and there was a new senator from CA. Maybe that would be a bridge too far for some of them.

But theoretically they could still block a new appointment and the committee gets stuck for the rest of the session. And getting around that would require one of Manchin or Sinema to vote with the other 49 Democrats+Harris to change the rules. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Bironic said:

I live across an entire Ocean from the USA so maybe my insight into the american education system and the general public isn't so good. But with an electoral reform of just the US presidential election there would have been no George W. Bush (yes I know he won in 2004 fair and square) and no Donald Trump. Two of the worst presidents in US history. I am certainly not claiming that Al Gore or Hillary Clinton would have turned out to be the next FDR, but they would have been average, not great probably, but also not a disaster. And maybe they could have taken some small steps to better the general knowledge and education of the US citizenry.

I haven't looked in some time, but our education system doesn't compare well to many Western European countries. 

And the kind of reforms you're calling for are very unlikely to happen. The Electoral College isn't going away nationwide and worse yet, soon half the country will live in just eight states and within those states people will be packed in urban centers which further dilutes their political power. 

50 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

No, it's more complicated than that, but they could have just laid down and voted to turn America into a personal piggie bank for the Trump family. Certainly at that point the DOJ had laid down on the job and no one else was going to stop it. 

Obviously, right-wing primaries are a problem.

Sure, but there's no realistic solution to fix them and like I mentioned the expectation should be that they'll get worse over time. 

[Bironic]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I haven't looked in some time, but our education system doesn't compare well to many Western European countries. 

And the kind of reforms you're calling for are very unlikely to happen. The Electoral College isn't going away nationwide and worse yet, soon half the country will live in just eight states and within those states people will be packed in urban centers which further dilutes their political power. 

Sure, but there's no realistic solution to fix them and like I mentioned the expectation should be that they'll get worse over time. 

So your take is it's gonna get worse over time until there's some sort of coup d'etat, civil war, dictatorship?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

29 minutes ago, Bironic said:

So your take is it's gonna get worse over time until there's some sort of coup d'etat, civil war, dictatorship?

Idk if those are inevitable outcomes, however, there's no reason to believe things will get better in the near future. If the Republican party is able to return to some semblance of sanity things could be repaired over time, but there's little evidence that's going to happen anytime soon

And on that note, Republicans have just nuked the stopgap bill to avoid a shutdown. It can still be revived, but this is just another sign of how unserious they are. 

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

That may play a role, but it's not the underlying problem. A majority of Americans don't know basic stuff about the government, politics and US history. It's fair to say a super majority are ill-equipped to understand even the marginally complex issues. There's no way to immediately correct this and in many places these problems will only get worse over the coming years.  The latter is made worse due to the Senate and the courts. I want to be optimistic, but as I've said before gaming out the next decade or two mostly leads to bad scenarios. 

This is simply people. It's not Americans exclusively. The main differences with US citizens compared to other Western democracies are around deeper distrust of governmental institutions, major ethnic divides, and a stronger value of individuality. 

But the general thesis of 'knowing basic stuff about the government' is not going to be a root cause anyone is going to fix because that's people for you. If your solution to fixing the US voting system or anything about our (or anyone else's) politics is 'educate more people better' you are absolutely fucked. 

If you take that as a basis point it becomes clear what the real root cause of the US political system's problems are: money. People are going to vote for those that they feel best about - regardless of policy concerns or other things like that. Policy doesn't win elections - feelings do. And as long as many politicians are accepting money to make policy changes that are in the rich's self interests those people will continue to win - both because they have more money to manipulate feelings, and because those who are best at manipulating feelings will go and get paid more. 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Bironic said:

So your take is it's gonna get worse over time until there's some sort of coup d'etat, civil war, dictatorship?

Probably the most likely outcome is an oligarchical authoritarian state that has some semblances of democratic rule but largely is highly illiberal. It probably oscillates between full authoritarian power and split governments which get absolutely nothing done, and where many of the big decisions are made via judicial fiat. 

A civil war or actual dictatorship are only likely if the US goes into deep decline financially for most of the people in it. If that doesn't happen chances are you'll get sporadic rioting and protests, occasional storming of the capital, but not a lot more than that.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Kalnak the Magnificent

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

If your solution to fixing the US voting system or anything about our (or anyone else's) politics is 'educate more people better' you are absolutely fucked. 

Well that's why I said we're probably fucked.

Quote

If you take that as a basis point it becomes clear what the real root cause of the US political system's problems are: money. 

Still, the lack of understanding this is part of the problem. There are myriad issues wrecking the system, but at its core it's people not understand and/or being invested in improving things. 

[Zorral]

Plus, of course, civilians have far far far more gunz than the do those of other countries.  What's the use of having one if you can't use it as you like on whom you like, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?  FreeDRUM!

[Kalbear]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Still, the lack of understanding this is part of the problem. There are myriad issues wrecking the system, but at its core it's people not understand and/or being invested in improving things. 

I mean, okay - but that's not fixable. That is, as I said, what people are. As long as they're mostly okay and getting by without a lot of strife or pain they'll not be doing anything about it. That is just what people are. Your thesis is that the problem with the system is people, and that's not a particularly interesting problem unless your solution is 'get rid of people'. And then it's a very interesting problem that a lot of people will often have opinions on.

As long as you have a system that has rulers based mostly on their personal popularity and tribal allegiances, you will always have this as an issue. If you want to have a system that is more about policy and merit you're asking for a benevolent dictatorship of some kind based mostly on bureaucrats and career government officials. Which, ya know, actually works pretty well as far as running things, provided most people are in line with it - Singapore is such a place as an example. But it isn't a democracy. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

34 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

unless your solution is 'get rid of people'.

Fuck yeah, now were getting somewhere, where do I sign?

2 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

Senator Feinstein has passed away.

Her final vote was like yesterday, and today she's dead. I dont understand these politicians at all or why they are so enamored with thier positions that they cannot manage to give them up even to the dying breath.

Thats not something i'd envy at all.

[Bironic]

45 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Probably the most likely outcome is an oligarchical authoritarian state that has some semblances of democratic rule but largely is highly illiberal. It probably oscillates between full authoritarian power and split governments which get absolutely nothing done, and where many of the big decisions are made via judicial fiat. 

A civil war or actual dictatorship are only likely if the US goes into deep decline financially for most of the people in it. If that doesn't happen chances are you'll get sporadic rioting and protests, occasional storming of the capital, but not a lot more than that.

Sounds kind of were Hungary is right now... or Russia was in the nineties... Dire Prospects for the US and the rest of the world... (and people here in Europe say that americans are so optimistic , I guess like most clichées it's not true). I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that. Times change obviously but if you look at history the US has shown remarkable strengths to come out of bad situations (didn't churchill once say that the americans will eventually come to the right decision after they have chosen all the wrong ones?)... Though the descent of the republican party from a fairly regular centre right party to a completely authoritarian fascist right wing extreme nutcase party over the past decades is frightening. But what frightens me most about that is the way your elections work they actually have a good chance at governing, while in at least parts of Europe with a generally more diverse/representative party and electoral system it's much more unlikely that say the right wing nuts actually get into power. Hence my previous posts that there should be some sort of electoral reform even if it just means to get rid of Citizens united (although that might be the least likely thing to change due to the long term composition of the SCOTUS).

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

I mean, okay - but that's not fixable. That is, as I said, what people are. As long as they're mostly okay and getting by without a lot of strife or pain they'll not be doing anything about it. That is just what people are. Your thesis is that the problem with the system is people, and that's not a particularly interesting problem unless your solution is 'get rid of people'. And then it's a very interesting problem that a lot of people will often have opinions on.

This seems like a defeatist position. I never said it would be easy, but just giving up ensures it. Other countries do a better job at civic engagement than we do. It would be a better approach to learn from them than just quitting on the whole idea. 

What's the opposite approach? I agree getting money out of the system is important, but it's not going to happen until you get the people to realize why it's bad for them.

Quote

As long as you have a system that has rulers based mostly on their personal popularity and tribal allegiances, you will always have this as an issue. If you want to have a system that is more about policy and merit you're asking for a benevolent dictatorship of some kind based mostly on bureaucrats and career government officials. Which, ya know, actually works pretty well as far as running things, provided most people are in line with it - Singapore is such a place as an example. But it isn't a democracy. 

I disagree. It wasn't always like this. The element was there, but it wasn't all consuming and the lack of care from the public is what's led us here. We all need to be stewards of the systems we're in. Failing to do so is how they degrade and when that happens bad actors do dirty shit while most people sleep. 

So first things first, we must demand more from ourselves. That's where change begins. Letting people off the hook only continues to make things worse. 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Tywin et al.

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This seems like a defeatist position. I never said it would be easy, but just giving up ensures it. Other countries do a better job at civic engagement than we do. It would be a better approach to learn from them than just quitting on the whole idea. 

Like who? 

Because I bet if you look into it one of the things they do is have way less money in their politics than we do. 

And acknowledging the reality of things is not defeatist. It just means your idea won't work. 

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What's the opposite approach? I agree getting money out of the system is important, but it's not going to happen until you get the people to realize why it's bad for them.

There isn't an opposite approach; there's a complementary approach. What you need, ultimately, are a few very popular people who are willing to fight the system and don't care about the money for whatever reason. The most likely source of that will be people who already are fairly wealthy. If they're popular enough they'll be able to get more people onboard because opposing them will be political suicide. The general populace will go along with them happily because they like that person. But - here's the important thing - that liking that person has nothing to do with their policies. The policies come after the person, not the other way around. The majority of people don't vote for someone who will do the things they want; they vote for someone who makes them feel better, and then they justify their rationalization for it later. Or - even worse - they alter their policy goals to suit that popular person's viewpoints. 

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I disagree. It wasn't always like this. The element was there, but it wasn't all consuming and the lack of care from the public is what's led us here. We all need to be stewards of the systems we're in. Failing to do so is how they degrade and when that happens bad actors do dirty shit while most people sleep. 

No, this is revisionist bullshit. The lack of care from the public is not remotely what got us there. This is the same bullshit argument that individual people are the ones who need to take care of climate change - an argument that is pushed by big oil companies. Before this there was a system that fucked over minorities left and right. We're still happy to fuck over women. We didn't burn the system down because Nixon literally tried to commit crimes and in fact we elected a Republican 6 years later, one who did far worse things than Nixon ever dreamed of - because we liked him and he made us feel good. I mean, seriously - we had an administration which sold drugs in exchange for arming a brutal insurgency - and you think we are not caring now? 

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

So first things first, we must demand more from ourselves. That's where change begins. Letting people off the hook only continues to make things worse. 

People aren't going to change in the aggregate the way you want any more than my cat will start flying if I yell at it enough. You have this notion that personal responsibility solves all problems despite this absurd amount of evidence that this isn't true; have you thought about actually applying this to yourself and seeing how you're actually, ya know, wrong?