2020 Political Chatter

[Loknor]

A fool and their money are easily parted. If you want to donate to pay for law suits and campaign debt, feel free to waste your money.

Oh sweet summer child. You really believe they will use that money to pay their debts (or there lawyers)?

[jclay]

I think it's a twofer: string out the lawsuits to maximize donations now, and plant suspicion good and deep so it sticks. Use the donations and simmering paranoia to cue up a 2024 run.

I'd say that you have an iron grasp of the fundamentals!

The culture wars have gone prime time.

I don't think it's hyperbole or excessively dramatic to opine that our country is, and will continue to be, in peril for quite some time. The problems we face are real and substantial; and the salad days born out of the 40 or so years of industrial dominance resulting from WWII (it built ours while leaving our erstwhile competitors in ash heaps...for a while...and it has nothing to do with "exceptionalism") are over, long gone, and they won't come back. How do you have a large, relatively affluent and restive middle/lower class when the industries which made it all possible have been exported and we no longer have that intellectual/know-how competitive advantage? There are, of course, ways to ameliorate the situation but our culture doesn't seem to have the ability to discuss the options openly and intelligently, never mind actually do anything very effective about it.

As I've said before: My Italian sis-in-law hit the nail on the head some 20 odd years ago when she observed that the USA was on a Third World economic trajectory. I don't see how this ends well, even ignoring climate catastrophes.

[ides1056]

"This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.

He accuses everybody on that debate stage of lying. And it’s simply a mindless yell. Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing. The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist. A narcissist at a level I don’t think this country has ever seen.

Everything in Donald’s world is about Donald. And he combines being a pathological liar, and I say pathological because I actually think Donald, if you hooked him up to a lie-detector test, he could say one thing in the morning, one thing at noon and one thing in the evening, all contradictory and he’ll pass the lie detector test each time. Whatever lie he’s telling, at that minute he believes it.

(Ted) Cruz added:

Bullies don’t come from strength, bullies come from weakness. Bullies come from a deep, yawning cavern of insecurity."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/o...gtype=Homepage


As for voting irregularities:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/u...gtype=Homepage

basically zero

[sine]

as i've said before: My italian sis-in-law hit the nail on the head some 20 odd years ago when she observed that the usa was on a third world economic trajectory. I don't see how this ends well, even ignoring climate catastrophes.

rofl.

[jclay]

rofl.

Sorry, I mis-quoted; her exact words were that "the USA is on the Central and South American plan". She was referring to economic stratification, increasing economic inequality, extreme concentration of wealth in a tiny demographic while the middle class largely slides into the lower class, that sort of thing. And that is exactly what's been happening.

[Saab2000]

Sorry, I mis-quoted; her exact words were that "the USA is on the Central and South American plan". She was referring to economic stratification, increasing economic inequality, extreme concentration of wealth in a tiny demographic while the middle class largely slides into the lower class, that sort of thing. And that is exactly what's been happening.

That’s a macro issue. The micro issue is getting the GOP and the current occupant of the White House to quit crying about fraud. It’s an attempted coup d’etat and the various Secretaries of State need to be decisive and firm in their language.

This is not as benign or funny as it looks. IMHO.

[jclay]

That’s a macro issue. The micro issue is getting the GOP and the current occupant of the White House to quit crying about fraud. It’s an attempted coup d’etat and the various Secretaries of State need to be decisive and firm in their language.

This is not as benign or funny as it looks. IMHO.

You're 100% correct; and I'm not laughing.

I was hoping to drive home what should be the obvious point that there is nothing special about the US; we're not vaccinated against exactly what what you describe; the reality of my SIL's statement is one of the reasons why someone like Trump is able to do what he's doing.

People need to be phoning their GOP MOCs and such as that, and raising hell. I am.

[Loknor]

This is not as benign or funny as it looks. IMHO.

Nobody says it's benign or funny?

However look at who will profit from this perceived Coup détat? McConnel? He already can manipulate the course of the nation at will. He also didn't bend to Trump on Covid relieve (and thus probably cost him the election).

The donor class? They would be insane, the economic fallout would be enormous.

Please don't go full Q-Anon... it's bad enough that the Scary Republican Base went inside the rabbithole.

Some more things:

- If he wanted a coup he should have replaced the people before hand.
- He always replaces them with other career politicians, never someone from his inside clique (his inside clique is tiny).
- It would be the most idiotic coup ever considering he was lazy enough to go golfing at the most critical moment. If you want a coup you do it before everyone declares publically for the other side.

This is just too much anxiety... this is really bad, it's really disgraceful, but a coup? Nope.

[echappist]

rofl.

Well, just b/c southern Italy is in some royal s*** doesn't negate validity of the statement. To assert otherwise is a standard tu quoque fallacy

One could be from the poorest Central American or Sub-Saharan country, and that would not prima facie preclude one from critiquing the current state of affairs in the U.S.

Otoh, if this were some Russian or PR China official mouthpiece taking potshots, while it still doesn't detract from the validity, it would veer quite a bit into the "kettle calling pot black" territory as to blunt the effectiveness of the overall message. No different from the juxtaposition of Sec. Pompeo stating that the State Department is withholding visas from officials from countries suppressing democracy, so soon after Sen. Lee of Utah spewing the following drivel.

Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.

The word “democracy” appears nowhere in the Constitution, perhaps because our form of government is not a democracy. It’s a constitutional republic. To me it matters. It should matter to anyone who worries about the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few.’

Government is the official use of coercive force–nothing more and nothing less. The Constitution protects us by limiting the use of government force.

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You're 100% correct; and I'm not laughing.

I was hoping to drive home what should be the obvious point that there is nothing special about the US; we're not vaccinated against exactly what what you describe; the reality of my SIL's statement is one of the reasons why someone like Trump is able to do what he's doing.

People need to be phoning their GOP MOCs and such as that, and raising hell. I am.

How should I give Sen. Johnson a royal earful? Should I end the missive by saying I fully intend on voting him out?

[Saab2000]

Please don't go full Q-Anon...

I'm not going full Q... But when the Secretary of State says he looks forward to a smooth transition to a second Trump administration I take notice. That's not language to dismiss readily from someone as high up as he is.

The election is essentially over. The transition to a new president is just beginning and so far, to my eyes, it's not going smoothly at all. I just hope there are no shenanigans from the various secretaries of state in the tightly contested states.

Yes, most of the lawsuits are being tossed as completely baseless but I wouldn't put much past a few loyalists at the state level. I'll just be glad when he's out of office. I don't care if he concedes or not. That's just language. Actions speak much more powerfully and his actions chip away at the foundations of trustworthy democracy.

[suspectdevice]

If you aren’t more scared NOW then you were on 11/2, you aren’t paying attention.

The fact that trump wasn’t roundly repudiated has already set back world perception of the US for a generation. This is clearly not a stable country. It certainly isn’t and never has been a free or fair country.
The next authoritarian populist president will be far more competent, and our economic system will not become more fair under the dying gasps of the two party system.

Must we wait patiently upon the deaths of millions of Americans before we move forward, or can we finally move forward on a project to make new nations?

RIP USA

[sine]

Well, just b/c southern Italy is in some royal s*** doesn't negate validity of the statement. To assert otherwise is a standard tu quoque fallacy

One could be from the poorest Central American or Sub-Saharan country, and that would not prima facie preclude one from critiquing the current state of affairs in the U.S.

Reality will. Of course anyone can critique affairs in any country......I critique politicians (and the single payer healthcare) in one of the countries I lived in.

Despite Trumps crap, I still firmly believe that the USA is a great country....warts and all. Maybe folks here should listen to Biden.

“It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again, and to make progress.”

[BBB]

Oh sweet summer child. You really believe they will use that money to pay their debts (or there lawyers)?

Whatever the case may be, the proposition still stands. Why anyone would give money to these goats (which is an unfortunate insult to goats) is beyond my meagre comprehension.

[suspectdevice]

Yes, and if you stop and listen to Americans (I spent the week in the lead up to the election and the last week in GA and S.C.) we are not one nation.
We have two completely different realities, 2 completely different sets of priorities.

One reality is based on science, reasoning and common sense and a desire for more equality(as long as it doesn’t harm corporate personhood and profits!) .
The other reality is based on the negation of all aspects of the Other Reality(as long as it doesn’t hurt corporate personhood and profits).

44 years of mostly-unchecked Regressivism and the complete destruction of our educational system have created this. It will take just as long to fix.

This is the America that Republicans have been conniving for since they sent Dutch up to the Whitehouse. This is the America served by the destruction of Labor and the marriage of neo-liberalism with neo-conservatism and 20 years and trillions of dollars of Nation Building abroad. The United States is a failed democracy with an autocratic strong man and no social safety net.
This is what a country looks like that has spent the past 100 years “fighting global communism” at the expense of serving it’s own people.

Not only must we wait for the death of a large percentage of boomers, we must also wait for a large portion of the population under 50 to cease to breathe and vote.
You can’t fix stupid. Only wait for Stupid to die, and hope that abortion remains safe and legal.

Rememberance Day is probably a fitting time to Pour One Out for The United States.

[j44ke]

Whatever the case may be, the proposition still stands. Why anyone would give money to these goats (which is an unfortunate insult to goats) is beyond my meagre comprehension.

Because there are a lot of trees in Tongass.

[jclay]

This is what a country looks like that has spent the past 100 years “fighting global communism” at the expense of serving it’s own people..

That. While not the entire ballgame, most certainly frames and directs it.

Exceptional, indeed.

I had fried mullet during a ride towards the coast the other day; my bro and SIL in Modena, on their ride the same day, had the product of a 500 year old recipe.

[Bob Ross]

I'm unfamiliar with the context of the Senator Lee quotes, but fwiw, way back at some point in the 1970s when I was a wee lad in junior high school (or maybe high school?) Social Studies class -- some of you may have called it Civics -- this was drummed into our heads:

"our form of government is not a democracy. It’s a constitutional republic."

So ... I don't know if Senator Lee and my Social Studies teachers were wrong, or if Senator Lee and my Social Studies teachers are/were better educated than the current masses. But I found it interesting that the quote from Lee is pretty much verbatim what I was given as the party line almost 50 years ago.

[j44ke]

So (general "so" not specific "so") read this interview to the end. It is material to the discussion and a lot of other things.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/m...gtype=Homepage

[echappist]

I'm unfamiliar with the context of the Senator Lee quotes, but fwiw, way back at some point in the 1970s when I was a wee lad in junior high school (or maybe high school?) Social Studies class -- some of you may have called it Civics -- this was drummed into our heads:



So ... I don't know if Senator Lee and my Social Studies teachers were wrong, or if Senator Lee and my Social Studies teachers are/were better educated than the current masses. But I found it interesting that the quote from Lee is pretty much verbatim what I was given as the party line almost 50 years ago.

Your social studies teacher isn't wrong (viz. the U.S. is not a direct democracy). But Sen. Lee is making a bad faithed argument based on "not a democracy".

Sen. Lee would have been correct, had the scope of his argument applied only to direct democracy (as in, a country where majority of legislation and rules are passed via plebiscite). There would have been nothing wrong with that statement. Truth is, no country really operates that way; maybe countries could get away with legislative functions determined by plebiscites, but I doubt any nation state could have its executive functions carried out that way. Some New England towns may operate this way (at least, that's what I was taught), and plebiscites occur more frequently in Switzerland, but by and large, no nation state operates as a direct democracy.

There are, however, a lot of countries that are indirect democracies (representative democracies), and the metes and bounds of what is characteristic of an indirect democracy are largely the same as that of a meaningful republic. There are probably people here well-versed enough to point out the differences, but both operate based on election of representatives, who go on to pass laws and enforce laws. By meaningful republic, I'm referring to nation states with free elections, not the self-styled sham Democratic Republics (e.g. East Germany), People's Republics (e.g. PR China), and Democratic People's Republics (e.g. North Korea).

In the context of the entirety of his remarks, Sen. Lee is taking advantage of the common metonyms used in daily speech (viz. describing the form of indirect democracy practiced as just "democracy" per se), equating "democracy" with "direct democracy", and hoping to make arguments against direct democracy stick on the commonly accepted metes and bounds of the term "democracy" (viz. indirect democracy), all the while hiding the fact that there is not meaningful difference between indirect democracy and republic. It's nothing more than a rhetorical jedi mind trick.

[Peter Polack]

A fool and their money are easily parted. If you want to donate to pay for law suits and campaign debt, feel free to waste your money.

Today's speculation is just that-The Republican party is asking for donations to fund the lawsuits and will string out the process as long as possible to maximize donations. They'll capitulate at the 24th hour then dupe the people by using the money to pay off the election debt, which was the intention all along.