US Politics: A democratic election Prospect Theory and practice

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

No.

So… no long term consequences for this intra-party factional fighting?

[DMC thank you for the correction]

Edited April 1 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[A True Kaniggit]

5 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So… no long term consequences for this inter-party factional fighting?

Is this an either or situation?

Just because the Republican party doesn’t split in half, does not mean there are no long term consequences for this inter-party factional fighting. 

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So… no long term consequences for this inter-party factional fighting?

Dude we've adapted a word for intra (NOT inter) party factional fighting - getting "primaried."  And, yes, with polarization this becomes more frequent.  That does not indicate either major party - both of which have been around since the Civil War - is going to collapse any time soon. 

In a two-party system, each major party is by definition a constantly shifting coalition of voters.  THAT will change, as it always does, albeit perhaps more drastically in the near future.  But I don't see the donkey or the elephant going extinct any time soon.

[DMC]

Intraparty = Within each party

Interparty = Between the two parties

Class dismissed.

[Kalbear]

To yes and @DMC here, there will be plenty of consequences. People like MTG will be more close to the norm or the center of the Republican party. There will be even fewer moderates, and fewer people able to work with anyone else. There will likely be even more dysfunction in congress, especially if the houses or the executive are split from congress. The US may do things like default on debt or be considered significantly more risky of an investment. Allies will be unable to count on the US because the US cannot do simple things like support them in time of war. Domestic aid for disasters will be more difficult. 

But in terms of the actual Republican party existing, or having a multiparty system? No. The system is built to support exactly two parties. Three or more parties - even viable ones - will not be stable and will very quickly coalesce into two. 

[A True Kaniggit]

19 minutes ago, DMC said:

Intraparty = Within each party

Interparty = Between the two parties

Class dismissed.

Should have gone with a mic drop. 

[DMC]

26 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

People like MTG will be more close to the norm or the center of the Republican party. There will be even fewer moderates, and fewer people able to work with anyone else. There will likely be even more dysfunction in congress, especially if the houses or the executive are split from congress. The US may do things like default on debt or be considered significantly more risky of an investment. Allies will be unable to count on the US because the US cannot do simple things like support them in time of war. Domestic aid for disasters will be more difficult. 

LOL.  I like how I post an article about "moderate" Republicans - and yes, those quotation marks are very important - challenging Bob Good and your response is exactly the opposite of what that suggests.  Dude's already an incumbent, and the reason he's being challenged is exactly because he was too extreme.

But, ya know, you keep being you.  It's adorable.  TBC, you're not wrong in the aggregate.  But asymmetric polarization doesn't work in the way your weird dark fantasies dictate.  Not to mention the fact a lot of what you just said is already happening, and has for quite a while now.

[Kalbear]

14 minutes ago, DMC said:

LOL.  I like how I post an article about "moderate" Republicans - and yes, those quotation marks are very important - challenging Bob Good and your response is exactly the opposite of what that suggests.  Dude's already an incumbent, and the reason he's being challenged is exactly because he was too extreme.

But, ya know, you keep being you.  It's adorable.  TBC, you're not wrong in the aggregate.  But asymmetric polarization doesn't work in the way your weird dark fantasies dictate.  Not to mention the fact a lot of what you just said is already happening, and has for quite a while now.

I agree, that's what is happening to Good. But that's not what is happening in the aggregate to the GOP. It is not likely any time soon based on the existing trends that the GOP is going to be bending more moderately, at least not until they start losing significantly in the general. To add to the above, Good is going to be challenged in his primary and is likely not going to have a problem winning. Do you disagree? 

As to what is happening now or has been - sure? But it's going to get worse, and will likely have more extreme long term consequences than what we've seen. As an example, so far we have not seen a real serious shutdown last for any major length of time. So far we have not seen the US default on owed debt. So far we have not seen alliances with the US simply end. I think that's likely to change. 

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

To add to the above, Good is going to be challenged in his primary and is likely not going to have a problem winning. Do you disagree? 

I honestly don't know.  I'm not an expert on his district.  What I know is people that are more familiar with such things are making an effort to challenge him.  If you know better, please share.

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

But it's going to get worse, and will likely have more extreme long term consequences than what we've seen. As an example, so far we have not seen a real serious shutdown last for any major length of time. So far we have not seen the US default on owed debt. So far we have not seen alliances with the US simply end. I think that's likely to change. 

Yeah, I know you do.  I started posting on these threads pretty much right after Trump was elected.  Since then, there's been three election cycles.  In all three of those cycles, Trump/MAGA/the GOP at-large - at best - underperformed.  And without fail, in all three of those cycles, you insisted the sky was falling.  Like I said - you be you!  Your pessimistic attitude is as reliable as the phases of the moon.  It's very cute.

To directly answer your questions, I'm not sure what you mean by a "serious" shutdown.  Trump broke the record on that already with 35 days in 2018-9.  Do I think one will last longer if, say, Trump is elected and there's a Dem House and/or Senate?  Maybe?  But probably not much longer.

As for defaulting on our debt?  No.  I don't see that happening at all.  This is a basic logic problem.  Either Trump is president, which means he's not going to want that to happen and neither are the Dems.  Or Trump is not the president, which means Biden will work it out with the GOP leadership as per usual.

As for alliances with the US "simply end[ing]," you'll have to be more specific.  Do you mean him trying to extricate the US from NATO?  Cuz, nah, that ain't happening.  If you mean ceasing funding for Ukraine?  Absolutely, I think that is one of the major stakes of the election.  Otherwise, I'm not really sure what you're referring to.

[A True Kaniggit]

11 minutes ago, DMC said:

As for alliances with the US "simply end[ing]," you'll have to be more specific.  Do you mean him trying to extricate the US from NATO?  Cuz, nah, that ain't happening.  If you mean ceasing funding for Ukraine?  Absolutely, I think that is one of the major stakes of the election.  Otherwise, I'm not really sure what you're referring to.

 

You have far more faith in Trump than I do. 

I could totally see Trump ignoring a Russian invasion of Estonia (because let’s face it, the man who was President for four years still does not know what Estonia is)

And the minute we don’t defend a Nato ally from invasion, well that’s the end of Nato.

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

I honestly don't know.  I'm not an expert on his district.  What I know is people that are more familiar with such things are making an effort to challenge him.  If you know better, please share.

In general, primaries - especially the GOP ones - favor the more partisan leaners provided they are not causing major problems for the party as a whole. More recently it really comes down to Trump. Now here Good might be fucked - he supported DeSantis for a bit, and while he's apparently come back to roost a bunch of folks are trying to tie him to not supporting Trump well enough. Trump hasn't endorsed him yet. So...maybe? 

But it won't be because he's too extreme. It'll simply be because he's not sufficiently loyal to Trump. 

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah, I know you do.  I started posting on these threads pretty much right after Trump was elected.  Since then, there's been three election cycles.  In all three of those cycles, Trump/MAGA/the GOP at-large - at best - underperformed.  And without fail, in all three of those cycles, you insisted the sky was falling.  Like I said - you be you!  Your pessimistic attitude is as reliable as the phases of the moon.  It's very cute.

Am I particularly wrong about that, though? 

And you're 100% right that in congressional races Trump's team have underperformed. They still control the House, they will almost certainly control the senate in 2024 barring some very weird-ass shit, and Trump is currently polling well enough to win. If the sky hasn't fallen yet, it certainly is buckling. I don't know how you look at the current status quo and think 'well, this isn't all that bad'. 

Put it another way: we had a legitimate attempt at overthrowing the democratic succession of governance in the US and the main instigators of it are running and polling as the frontrunner. How is that not a sky is falling moment?

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

To directly answer your questions, I'm not sure what you mean by a "serious" shutdown.  Trump broke the record on that already with 35 days in 2018-9.  Do I think one will last longer if, say, Trump is elected and there's a Dem House and/or Senate?  Maybe?  But probably not much longer.

As for defaulting on our debt?  No.  I don't see that happening at all.  This is a basic logic problem.  Either Trump is president, which means he's not going to want that to happen and neither are the Dems.  Or Trump is not the president, which means Biden will work it out with the GOP leadership as per usual.

Serious shutdown: one that lasts longer than 2 months. I would say that if Trump is elected it probably won't happen as badly - amusingly to me, I would say that it would more likely happen if Republicans are in power - but if Biden is and Trump is still alive chances are very good that if Republicans control any part of congress they will block it. I think that there are going to be enough extremist Republicans that are willing to burn the country down to hurt a Dem, and if Trump loses I think he'll be egging them on as hard as he can. 

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

As for alliances with the US "simply end[ing]," you'll have to be more specific.  Do you mean him trying to extricate the US from NATO?  Cuz, nah, that ain't happening.  If you mean ceasing funding for Ukraine?  Absolutely, I think that is one of the major stakes of the election.  Otherwise, I'm not really sure what you're referring to.

One big one I can see ending right away is Taiwan. I do not see how congress in its current state or close to it authorizes funding - much less actual military use - to deal with China. Given the difficulties with Ukraine? Pfft, not a chance. I see that happening with Trump or Biden if it happens in the next 4 years, mind you. I don't think it'll happen because China is being shown to be way less prepared militarily than they thought, but it's certainly a possibility. 

I also expect Trump to try to pull out of NATO, and a lot of it will depend on how much Republicans control the various houses. If he doesn't pull out of NATO I think he'll just kill it via lack of funds. Biden will stay in, of course, but that lack of funding may also be a problem. 

For other alliances - I think Mexico is going to be real problematic soon too. Japan and Korea are other good possibilities, especially Korea. 

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

And the minute we don’t defend a Nato ally from invasion, well that’s the end of Nato.

Yeah, I don't see that happening.  It's not really faith in Trump.  It's the fact he can't simply reverse NATO commitments like he did with Obama's executive agreements.  He'd have to take on Congress and the military to go against the grain in such a way. 

Bolton got headlines the other day for saying Trump is too stupid to be a dictator.  I don't agree with that.  But one thing he is, is too lazy to take on things it's VERY hard to change.

[DMC]

24 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

In general, primaries - especially the GOP ones - favor the more partisan leaners provided they are not causing major problems for the party as a whole.

Are..are you seriously trying to tell me how primaries generally work?  Yeah, primaries generally extend further to the extremes, but that doesn't mean they can't work the other way on occasion.  There's countless examples of such at the state level in recent contests. 

Speaking of generalities - this speaks to one.  You're assuming generalities apply to every single contest.  They don't, that's why they're generalities and it's why every cycle there are always outliers.  Is Good's district an outlier?  Again, I don't know, but it doesn't seem as if you're offering any knowledge either way.  Just stating the obvious.

35 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

they will almost certainly control the senate in 2024 barring some very weird-ass shit, and Trump is currently polling well enough to win. If the sky hasn't fallen yet, it certainly is buckling. I don't know how you look at the current status quo and think 'well, this isn't all that bad'. 

Says you.  Not a reliable source.

37 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I think that there are going to be enough extremist Republicans that are willing to burn the country down to hurt a Dem, and if Trump loses I think he'll be egging them on as hard as he can. 

Yeah, he already did that for the last six months.  How'd that work?  Empirics strongly suggest you're wrong.

39 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

One big one I can see ending right away is Taiwan. I do not see how congress in its current state or close to it authorizes funding - much less actual military use - to deal with China. Given the difficulties with Ukraine? Pfft, not a chance. I see that happening with Trump or Biden if it happens in the next 4 years, mind you. I don't think it'll happen because China is being shown to be way less prepared militarily than they thought, but it's certainly a possibility. 

Huh?  I honestly don't know how to parse this.  As for NATO, see above.

[Darzin]

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

One big one I can see ending right away is Taiwan. I do not see how congress in its current state or close to it authorizes funding - much less actual military use - to deal with China. Given the difficulties with Ukraine? Pfft, not a chance. 

Republicans have an entirely different relationship to Taiwan and China then they do to Ukraine and Russia. You shouldn't use one to measure the other. A lot of Replicans leaned into being China hawks to counter the Russia stuff and even the wingnuts are always going on about "Chicoms". 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

I know this is my own paranoia here, but I cannot abide the idea of  the House Majority Leader being an active election subverter and wacko Christian Nationalist. If my mind is going to dark possibilities for them to get the #3 guy to the top of the list in the event of a Biden victory (particularly if Biden passes during his second term), you know that people in the MAGA camp are thinking about it too.

I hate thinking about this shit; I feel like I'm rehashing old episodes of Designated Survivor instead of thinking about a real world filled with serious adults. But MAGA folks do in fact want to turn politics into a white trash action thriller. We shouldn't lack imagination about what they might try, given that they lack perspective and shame.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

I know this is my own paranoia here, but I cannot abide the idea of  the House Majority Leader being an active election subverter and wacko Christian Nationalist. If my mind is going to dark possibilities for them to get the #3 guy to the top of the list in the event of a Biden victory (particularly if Biden passes during his second term), you know that people in the MAGA camp are thinking about it too.

I hate thinking about this shit; I feel like I'm rehashing old episodes of Designated Survivor instead of thinking about a real world filled with serious adults. But MAGA folks do in fact want to turn politics into a white trash action thriller. We shouldn't lack imagination about what they might try, given that they lack perspective and shame.

I mean for all we know the MAGA people are hard at work to bring about false vacuum decay.  We're in that sweet spot today between the recent lunar and incipient solar eclipse, but this is even beyond Lunar Kal Ender speculation.  

[Phylum of Alexandria]

1 hour ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

I mean for all we know the MAGA people are hard at work to bring about false vacuum decay.  We're in that sweet spot today between the recent lunar and incipient solar eclipse, but this is even beyond Lunar Kal Ender speculation.

Yeah yeah yeah. I admitted it was nutty, but it's not worthy of complete dismissal.

I mean, it's not like Kiefer Sutherland pioneered the notion of presidential assassination attempts. There's unfortunately a long and storied national history there. 

 

Edit: Not to mention, remember when speculation about rejecting the votes first emerged, and it was dismissed by many as paranoiac fantasy? Sometimes it pays to game out ideas, even if they risk being silly. (and especially when the enemy is itself in many ways silly)

Edited April 1 by Phylum of Alexandria

[DMC]

Currently, Trump v Biden is trending towards the latter, even in RCP's metric.  Feel like this needs to be noted.

[Kalbear]

10 hours ago, DMC said:

Yeah, I don't see that happening.  It's not really faith in Trump.  It's the fact he can't simply reverse NATO commitments like he did with Obama's executive agreements.  He'd have to take on Congress and the military to go against the grain in such a way. 

Bolton got headlines the other day for saying Trump is too stupid to be a dictator.  I don't agree with that.  But one thing he is, is too lazy to take on things it's VERY hard to change.

There is one place that Trump is absolutely not lazy about - and that is the perceived threat of nuclear war. As commander-in-chief I believe he will also not need to do particularly much to do nothing. He simply has to say 'no'. And for something like Estonia it won't be a surprise, which would mean that Trump would have plenty of time to order troops withdrawn. 

Does congress have the authority to force Trump to order troops? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. 

10 hours ago, DMC said:

Are..are you seriously trying to tell me how primaries generally work?  Yeah, primaries generally extend further to the extremes, but that doesn't mean they can't work the other way on occasion.  There's countless examples of such at the state level in recent contests. 

Speaking of generalities - this speaks to one.  You're assuming generalities apply to every single contest.  They don't, that's why they're generalities and it's why every cycle there are always outliers.  Is Good's district an outlier?  Again, I don't know, but it doesn't seem as if you're offering any knowledge either way.  Just stating the obvious.

We were talking about generalities with Scot and others - about the generality of a Republican schism and the general path of how things are going. Furthermore your thesis statement was that Good was going to get primaried because he was too extreme, when we both know what the story is - that Good will likely get primaried because of insufficient loyalty to Trump. 

10 hours ago, DMC said:

Says you.  Not a reliable source.

Which part - that the sky is buckling, that things aren't that bad, or that 2024 will have the senate in likely control for Republicans? If it's the latter it's something that you've said. If it's the former - yeah, it's my opinion! Again, do you look at the current set of events - especially things like Ukraine funding or how the government has been funded or the speakership thing -  and go 'yeah, this is not too bad'?

10 hours ago, DMC said:

Yeah, he already did that for the last six months.  How'd that work?  Empirics strongly suggest you're wrong.

Seems to have worked basically fine. But even if it didn't work, so what? Do you think that they're going to actually stop because it didn't work? Is that how Trump has operated - has he pivoted to the middle?

10 hours ago, DMC said:

Huh?  I honestly don't know how to parse this.  As for NATO, see above.

My attempted point was to say that funding Ukraine's war with Russia was a relatively easy choice for congress. There was no troop involvement, the money directly benefitted American companies, it was largely seen as positive even by Republican voters - and they still couldn't do it. They've not been able to do it for the last 6 months. 

Funding and authorizing support for helping Taiwan against China in the event of a Chinese invasion or attack on Taiwan, where we're sending the actual Navy, air force and potentially some ground troops into harm's way - is a significantly harder lift. 

4 hours ago, Darzin said:

Republicans have an entirely different relationship to Taiwan and China then they do to Ukraine and Russia. You shouldn't use one to measure the other. A lot of Replicans leaned into being China hawks to counter the Russia stuff and even the wingnuts are always going on about "Chicoms". 

That's true, but they also aren't willing to go to war. 

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Does congress have the authority to force Trump to order troops? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. 

I gotta go to work and I'll respond to the rest of this later, but yes, Trump needs congressional approval for the US to leave NATO, which is what I was talking about.  It's typical that you ignore that fact.