The direction of society lately

[BBB]

Disgrace. Crook.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...der-paul-weiss

[Mabouya]

Disgrace. Crook.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...der-paul-weiss

The US doesn't have a president, we have a Grifter in Chief. The hypocrisy of the GOP is mind-boggling.

[BBB]

It's not just hypocrisy, it's pathetic.

From the link I posted:

"The firm, the White House claimed, also acknowledged the wrongdoing of Pomerantz, the partner involved in the investigation into Trump’s hush-money payments to an adult film actor. It was unclear whether Karp was aware of that claim."

If I remember rightly, he was found guilty for the hush-money payments.

[rwsaunders]

The fact that people who proclaim themselves as Christians then go and support a POS like Trump is beyond me. However, I remember having a discussion with a client when H. Clinton was running against Trump in 2016 and he said to me…”how could you vote for her if you’re a Christian?” I was absolutely floored and of course, that same group rallied around Trump again, this time with the added title of felon on his resume.

[Tom]

Pay to play, baby. I thought that stuff was illegal. Like anybody would prosecute.

[vertical_doug]

Your last paragraph sums up the left leaning voters to a tee.

As for the GOP coalitions, two main questions to ask for each group: a) what do they have to offer and b) what do they want.

1) Everyday voters, many of whom evangelical: a) above all else, votes at the ballot; b) theocratic policies, and perhaps a measly taxcut to the tune of $2k for a family of five.
2) Corporate interests, including donor class (Uihleins, Kochs, et al.): a) campaign money; b) reduced taxes and reduced regulations.
3) Federalist Society members: a) judicial decision; b) placed into position of power.

The money spent by 2) shapes coverage of campaigns and "informs" the decision of 1), who then votes in politicians that draft favorable policies. To ensure the establishment of these policies (and overturning of unfavorable policies), the same politicians appoints 3), thereby providing "dividend" to 1) and 2).

Of course the interests of 1) and 2) often are not fully aligned, with 2) often resorting to various practices to the detriment of 1) (e.g. off-shoring of jobs, hiring of illegal immigrants to deprive jobs to citizens, LBO of otherwise healthy companies, etc.), but when 2) can shape news coverage and throw in red herrings, and with most of 1) too gullible to know what actually hit them, the cycle continues.

One doesn't have to vote GOP to be impressed by the staggering simplicity and efficiency of this cynical cycle.

Well, the cynicism is really for the coordinated duopoly. Since Ross Perot scared the duopoly, they have continued to make it harder and harder for a 3rd party candidate to actually list on the ballot in all 50 states. Although I thought RFK was a kook, he never had a chance because of the 50 different ballot listing requirements. An election specialist said he thinks you need 2 years and $100,000,000 of funds to support an organization large enough to be successful.

You cannot even legally begin petition for signatures in Texas until after March of the election year. You need 100,000 plus signatures. After submitting, of course, the validity of the signatures can be challenged and even if you clear that hurdle, the DNC and RNC will mount court challenges.

[zachateseverything]

Well, the cynicism is really for the coordinated duopoly. Since Ross Perot scared the duopoly, they have continued to make it harder and harder for a 3rd party candidate to actually list on the ballot in all 50 states. Although I thought RFK was a kook, he never had a chance because of the 50 different ballot listing requirements. An election specialist said he thinks you need 2 years and $100,000,000 of funds to support an organization large enough to be successful.

You cannot even legally begin petition for signatures in Texas until after March of the election year. You need 100,000 plus signatures. After submitting, of course, the validity of the signatures can be challenged and even if you clear that hurdle, the DNC and RNC will mount court challenges.

an independent candidate can win a rare race in isolation (see Gov Ventura), but by and large they only play spoiler given that we declare election winners based off of who gets the most votes. since we use a duopoly and not a majority...or a parliamentary system...or ranked choice it means that only 2 political parties can exist in the USA of any real significance at any point in time.

We'll walk through the math here. First, let's say there are ten different political parties in the US and none gets more than a 20% share. Party 1 is a christofascist party that wants to enshrine Christianity as the official religion of the country and punish any who will not convert, they miraculously get that 20% of the vote. Of the remaining 9 parties, none get more than 15% share. Party 1 wins despite 80% of the population voting against them. That 80% will question their support for minority political parties in future elections.

The next election we only see 7 parties offering up candidates. It turns out that 4 of those smaller parties largely agreed on most economic and social policy but were split on being bike people, horse people, car people, or preferring public transport. Party 1 still gets 20% but this amalgamated party gets 35% and they now win the election. 65% however, voted against the winners and are going to question their vote in the next election.

We get another round. It turns out that a bunch of people from the prior election were single issue voters who care about firearms. Party 1 see this and expands their platform to include firearm access. Since the firearm people are single issue voters, they don't care about the Christofascism so they happily vote for Party 1. party 1 does the same for people that don't want to pay taxes. and for people that think Harry Potter is silly. They get 45% in the next election and win, despite 55% of the country not voting for them.

This continues until you have two roughly equal major parties getting the majority of votes. They're going to tailor their platforms to bring as much of those disparate constituencies together as possible. If a minor party comes up with a popular policy idea, one of the major parties will just co-opt that as it gains steam in order to maintain their hegemony.

[j44ke]

This silly Harry Potter party is interesting. Do they have a candidate running in an election near me?

[rccardr]

An interesting read:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...on-book-review

[caleb]

We are, but now we refer to them as data centers for the cloud or chip fabs. Haven't you been to Arizona or Tennessee?

I'm not sure if this is tounge-in-cheek, but the internet is a solution to zero of our political problems.

[caleb]

Out of curiosity (and asking solely seeking to understand), what would such a project look like today, and how much larger would it need to be compared to Biden’s Infrastructure spendings? Would it extend beyond infrastructure and into the realm of social welfare as well?

There are some people on the right who correctly identify what all the rage is about, Oren Cass among them. In a nutshell, one male income used to buy the American dream with change to spare, and now it doesn't: https://americancompass.org/2023-cos...hriving-index/



Do anything at all to change this graph in a direct, not-wonky way, on either the cost side or the income side, and it'll be a winning ticket.

I'd suggest that the outcome of the last election was in large part a result of voters thinking the Rs held more of a chance of changing it than the Ds.

[j44ke]

Under-employment is going to be a problem until the working class who benefited from the post-WWII industrial dream economy all die. The factories are gone, and there are no quick fixes, if there are any fixes at all, to the subtraction from the national economy of the steady quality wages and pensions that they brought to a section of the population who may not have even finished high school. What is amazing is Trump has the guys in the hardware store repeating "may get bad but it will be worth it" like some kind of soothing mantra - guys who would have run Biden over with their $70,000 pickup truck because of the high price of eggs.

This problem is almost universal in the first world - Germany, France, UK, etc. What to do with all the extra under-employed men. Queen Victoria sent them overseas and called it the British Empire. The Democrats advocate education along the lines of the massive post-WWII investment in math and science that created the brain power boom in this country (that seems to have culminated in smart phones - yay.) Republicans view labor as too expensive to allow industry to return and to allow investments to pay the sorts of returns that encourage more investments. Educated people are expensive, stupid people are cheap, when the reality is stupid people are really expensive and the return on investment in education is so far in the future that American politics can't see smell taste or imagine it. So who is winning that battle?

[72gmc]

Pay to play, baby. I thought that stuff was illegal. Like anybody would prosecute.

The cursed corpse of Spiro Agnew has mixed feelings — actual sacks of cash passing over the Resolute Desk should be the goal

[alexstar]

and suddenly out of thin air jill stein shows up every four years

the grifter cicada

[ides1056]

Re: Saint Ronnie- watch him in “Storm Warning,” where he plays the good guy v KKK.
Re: the Trojan horse that is the internet, the first “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” is good. I had a long- haired, homesteading libertarian spout Russian propaganda to my dumbfounded face before the election: “Alexy Navalny was an oligarch… China and Russia are better than the US.”

[Mark Walberg]

.......... What is amazing is Trump has the guys in the hardware store repeating "may get bad but it will be worth it" like some kind of soothing mantra - guys who would have run Biden over with their $70,000 pickup truck because of the high price of eggs. .......

A lot of the local Trump supporters say, "Finally a real leader is cutting the crap out of the government so that it can focus on what is really important.
As far as I can tell from what has been done so far, the "really important" stuff is to make rich white guys richer.
I guess that is capitalism.

[vertical_doug]

There are some people on the right who correctly identify what all the rage is about, Oren Cass among them. In a nutshell, one male income used to buy the American dream with change to spare, and now it doesn't: https://americancompass.org/2023-cos...hriving-index/



Do anything at all to change this graph in a direct, not-wonky way, on either the cost side or the income side, and it'll be a winning ticket.

I'd suggest that the outcome of the last election was in large part a result of voters thinking the Rs held more of a chance of changing it than the Ds.

I see the chart, and although everything increases, the two that stand out is healthcare and education. Both are easily corrected exempt for the political clout the lobbyists for both groups have.

[jclay]

Under-employment is going to be a problem until the working class who benefited from the post-WWII industrial dream economy all die. The factories are gone, and there are no quick fixes, if there are any fixes at all, to the subtraction from the national economy of the steady quality wages and pensions that they brought to a section of the population who may not have even finished high school. What is amazing is Trump has the guys in the hardware store repeating "may get bad but it will be worth it" like some kind of soothing mantra - guys who would have run Biden over with their $70,000 pickup truck because of the high price of eggs.

This problem is almost universal in the first world - Germany, France, UK, etc. What to do with all the extra under-employed men. Queen Victoria sent them overseas and called it the British Empire. The Democrats advocate education along the lines of the massive post-WWII investment in math and science that created the brain power boom in this country (that seems to have culminated in smart phones - yay.) Republicans view labor as too expensive to allow industry to return and to allow investments to pay the sorts of returns that encourage more investments. Educated people are expensive, stupid people are cheap, when the reality is stupid people are really expensive and the return on investment in education is so far in the future that American politics can't see smell taste or imagine it. So who is winning that battle?

The general electorate doesn't seem to realize that like every Great Power before us, the USA is simply the present day hegemon in decline; the West, in general, is in the same boat. The USA can't prevent the rise of capable global competitors but if really smart we can attenuate our descent rate; if dumb we can wreck our country. Dumb seems to hold the upper hand.

Ten years ago I figured that neither the USA nor the environment would come unglued before I expired within my, then, 30 year life planning horizon. Ignoring the implicit and dismal larger recognition of the virtual certainty that humans will wreck the planet wrt supporting higher order life, at some point, I'm not so bullish on my prediction anymore! Wheee!

[72gmc]

I see the chart, and although everything increases, the two that stand out is healthcare and education. Both are easily corrected exempt for the political clout the lobbyists for both groups have.

Of the two I’d pick healthcare as the priority to fix. Education costs are soaring but even some version of “expensive” education, in which educators are well paid, could be sustainable if we weren’t also strapped to the rock so that healthcare costs can feast on our innards.

[caleb]

I see the chart, and although everything increases, the two that stand out is healthcare and education. Both are easily corrected exempt for the political clout the lobbyists for both groups have.

I agree. Our government already spends 30% more per capita on healthcare than the UK, while only covering ~50% of the population and getting significantly worse outcomes on most metrics.

I think the sentiment expressed throughout this thread that the Democratic Party is somewhere between ineffective and corrupt is warranted.