I don't know about relating to, but I hate the delusional ones less than the cynics. I think the cynics might be less dangerous, but I despise them more personally.
Back in the Bush administration, I thought most of them were demented and I wanted them locked in a cave somewhere so they couldn't hurt people, but without a lot of personal animus. I don't know what's wrong with Bush and I don't care, I just don't want him allowed to run anything. Colin Powell I was angry at: he seemed like a competent intelligent human being -- he's my Dad's age and grew up only a few miles away from him -- who had decided to tell lies that helped kill hundreds of thousands of people for personal career advancement.
I am quite nervous about 2024 elections. R legislatures will send slates of bogus electors if the results are within 5%. The AZ circus now underway is a trial run.
DJT becoming medically unable to tweet and rile up a crowd might be enough to make that less likely to work, but I'm kind of over trusting in R decency and competence as a backstop. They want a strongman who is fun on TV.
I'm kind of over trusting in R decency and competence as a backstop
We got insanely lucky with Brad Raffensperger and they will make sure that doesn't happen again.
Yes, things are really bad. Everyone Republican who behaved honestly in a point where it matters is being kicked out or shoved aside.
The 6th to the 8th, are instructive - it took clear and present physical peril for people like Lindsey Graham to start denouncing Trump, and as soon as they had calmed down from that experience, they quickly about-faced.
I've largely ceased to think of any of these folks as "delusional." I think they are expressing a rational preference for complete freedom in deciding matters of factuality and decency.
At this point, I think it's a coinflip on whether 2024 is the last meaningful election in American history.
7: I think that's excessively pessimistic. Maybe it's a conflip as to whether 2026 and 2028 are meaningful elections, but these modern semi-authoritarian states tend to have ebbs and flows in terms of democracy. I think Turkey is the example to have in mind, not China or Russia.
7: I think that's excessively optimistic. I think there's a distinct chance that 2020 was the last meaningful election in American history.
8. Agreed, but Turkey doesn't have a free press at all, a meaningful nationwide political opposition, or an independent central bank or judiciary. Ebb and flow of a Fox-watching kakistocracy means that the US will look much more like Brazil much sooner than anyone here wants to think.
If fb and twitter are the new press in the US, expect big changes there Jan 8 2025 . This will be a country with no organs of perception , and deep conflicts between the central government and the rulers of the west coast and northeast. Those don't seem to be up to addressing self-imposed injuries with adequate resources at their disposal now. I expect that the means of negotiation will be cuts to the flow of finances, flow of electricity, checkpoints on the roads.
Help us outgrow our madness.
Which is to say that AKP cheated in the 2019 Istanbul mayor election, and they still lost. You can have a democracy where one party cheats and voting is still meaningful.
Yes, like most of American history in the south. But that's a huge degradation from where we were five years ago.
10.1: Yeah, I almost mentioned Brazil as another natural comp. The history of the southern cone in the 20th century really should be a big warning to the US, in many ways they're the most natural analogues of the US in the world.
I'm curious if folk who perceived the 1/6 insurrection as a strategic disaster for the right-wing at the time see things any differently now.
From my perspective, it's playing out more or less as I anticipated, albeit with more enthusiastic law enforcement effort than I expected. The Democrats aren't hammering the Republicans with it, there's no Commission to investigate it. The Republicans who took the opportunity to condemn Trump and the Big Lie have either crept back into the fold or are being punished. The bulk of the Republican electorate is now firmly convinced, or at least publicly states, that the election was stolen. There have been absolutely no consequences for the elected Republicans who aided and abetted the riot.
The history of the US should be a warning to the US. The Antarctic ice cores should be a warning to the US. Our 45th president should be a warning to the US.
Before power cuts and checkpoints, televised show trials for prominent democrats. The army won't sit the next one out, and it's not just overall trends that will matter, but the beliefs of people in the chain of command.
I'm curious if folk who perceived the 1/6 insurrection as a strategic disaster for the right-wing at the time see things any differently now.
I thought it was a disaster for them at the time. It still precipitated clipping DJT's twitter wings and I think they lost a lot of moderates who are happy to let stimulus checks warm them up to Biden. But I'm also gobsmacked at how quickly the GOP got over the actual terror for their lives that they felt during those hours. I thought that physical bodily fear was a genuinely new situation they hadn't been put in before and that it might leave an impression. But nope.
18.last Or maybe they are afraid of bodily harm, but they're cowards and think that full out appeasement of the terrorists is the easiest way to avoid it.
I suppose it is distasteful to wish that the insurrectionists had actually reached and killed a couple carefully selected Senators? We're not supposed to think like that?
18, 19: That was my thought - that physical fear is pushing them in the opposite direction.
It was a disaster, but the Democrats have fucked up pressing the advantage it gave them. Apparently even an attempted coup isn't enough to get the Democrats to realize their opponents are the Bolsheviks. Pretty much, Manchin and Sinema's grandstanding has doomed the Republic. Maybe if Cheney really gets booted out this will wake them up.
It wasn't the disaster it ought to have been, but the Republicans are worse off for having done it.
Maybe if Cheney really gets booted out this will wake them up.
I don't think so. Unlike the insurrection, Cheney getting the boot is pretty much a pure win for the bad guys.
22: What exactly should the Democrats have done differently? Manchin and Sinema are clearly enjoying the spotlight, but their grandstanding gives them cover to capitulate when it counts. We're doing a pretty good job capitalizing on our narrow governing margin and the agenda items are pretty damn progressive.
I can't imagine how Cheney getting booted would wake up any Democrat. I'm not clear in what sense the Democrats need waking up, though.
Counterfactuals are tough, but I just don't see any lasting damage done by the failed insurrection, and I do see benefits. One can reasonably criticize the response of democracy, but not so much the Democrats -- and neither is done responding.
Even as Trump maintains his grip on the Republican Party, his personal popularity has declined in a way that seems directly attributable to the insurrection. Likewise voter identification with the Republican Party is diminishing.
Twitter, of all entities, stepped up as a direct result of the insurrection, and we are no longer subject daily to the wit and wisdom of the former president. Facebook too. Law enforcement is doing its job, and now has more political cover for pursuing white terrorists. The environment also seems more amenable to putting Trump himself in jail. Did the insurrection aid that? Maybe!
And in the meantime, what did the insurrectionists gain? Did insurrection help Trump solidify his hold on his party? How could his hold have gotten any more solid? There's a case to be made that insurrection normalized the concept of insurrection, but we already knew a chunk of the country was prepared to follow Trump over a cliff. My guess is that insurrection didn't so much augment that tendency as reveal it. Now, would-be insurrectionists have to ponder the possibility of jail.
Insurrection also directly caused Lynn Cheney to break with the party, for whatever that is worth.
I think the response to the insurrection has largely been appropriate--although, really, they should have pressed to eject Louis Gomert and maybe MJT from the House--but nobody in a position to do anything about it* seems to responding to the GOP's quite obvious stance that withholding certification of the vote from a duly elected Democrat is the highest form of patriotism. Like the debt ceiling, this is a Chekov's gun just sitting there on the mantel waiting for the third act.
Like, in 2024, I fully expect the Michigan legislature to take unto itself the role of certifying the vote and simply... not do it, when Biden wins by 200K votes in the state.
I guess I view the failure to hold the GOP leaders responsible for the insurrection as having paved the way for the explosion on anti democratic election laws and regulations in the states. Maybe it was always going to be thus but my take is that the intensity of the insurrection served as justification for the disenfranchisement.
Anyway it's so weird we're sitting here regretting that a Cheney is being drummed out of public service.
I think the response to the insurrection has largely been appropriate
Something went wrong with my outrage-meter awhile back -- I think it was around 2004 when GWB got reelected after faking WMD and endorsing torture, among other things.
My internal system of outrage calibration insists that the appropriate response to the insurrection would be to hang Trump from a lamppost, but that can't be right, can it?
31: I have no real counter-argument, but that doesn't feel right to me. Hardcore voter suppression was always baked in, I'm thinking. Opposition to it -- particularly corporate lip-service to a fair vote -- was maybe augmented by a genuine fear of the collapse of democracy spurred by the insurrection. I don't think the insurrection was a win for those guys in any sense.
It doubled the number of people who graduated from my high school who have felony arrest records.
I assume that is for your graduating class only.
Just the classy people who graduated.
No one from my class has a felony arrest, but I'm only counting the people who I crossed paths with.
"22: What exactly should the Democrats have done differently?"
Expel Hawley, Cruz, and a dozen reps. Pass real elections reform (fairness criteria for districting and/multimeter districts, paper ballots only, ') with voting standards, with a "supreme court has 4 months from today to review, afterwhich it's jurisdiction expires" clause. National popular vote for prez, strip state leg of all role in vote certification.
Go after fox new etc: some fcc technical stuff to encourage unbundling, and go after all thier scammy advertisers (supplement makers, gold/bitcoin, etc). Prosecute all the white-collar fraudster which have become a core gop constituency. Spend some of the ridiculous amounts spent on political ads on buying local media.
39: can I donate to your campaign now or
Meanwhile, keep the process shit out of the news by doing popular stuff. Checks were a good start, but also do minimum wage, cannabis, frogmarch phonecall spammers, ban surprise billing, etc.
I couldn't give less of a shit about Liz Cheney. It isn't like she has been any sort of moderating force on the Republican Party. This is like watching a copperhead get attacked and eaten by a pack of rats.
...or a bunch of children using ants to attack a scorpion
...or a bunch of children using ants to attack a scorpion
Does anyone here really think that the price of whiskey is five cents a glass?
That guy running for mayor of New York probably does.
Also, NMM to Norman Lloyd.
It was two different candidates both wildly off by roughly the same amount! And one formerly held a position in HUD! Someone looked up what you could buy for their estimated cost of an apartment and the answer is a parking spot.
Which is to say that AKP cheated in the 2019 Istanbul mayor election, and they still lost. You can have a democracy where one party cheats and voting is still meaningful.
After Imamoglu's victory many of the administrative functions of the Istanbul mayoralty were transferred to the federal government, his primary political adviser was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for having tweeted in supported of Kurdish rights, and the anticorruption campaign threatening Erdogan allies that was his signature initiative was shut down. He's been quiet since, and presents no threat at all to the AKP.
Erdogan can legislate by fiat (in virtue of the state of emergency declared after the 2016 coup attempt that's still in effect); has purged the military, security services, judiciary, and educational institutions (which last are under federal control in Turkey); and has cowed the press through fines and prosecutions (take a look sometime at the English-language version of any Turkish newspaper that has one; the content will be unsettlingly saccharine and devoid of anything that might displease the current government). If the political opposition in Turkey ever genuinely threatened Erdogan he could remove that threat in short order using the full force of the state. As it is it's simply more convenient for him to allow them nominal victories while the Islamization of the country continues apace.
Which is to say that AKP cheated in the 2019 Istanbul mayor election, and they still lost. You can have a democracy where one party cheats and voting is still meaningful.
After Imamoglu's victory many of the administrative functions of the Istanbul mayoralty were transferred to the federal government, his primary political adviser was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for having tweeted in supported of Kurdish rights, and the anticorruption campaign threatening Erdogan allies that was his signature initiative was shut down. He's been quiet since, and presents no threat at all to the AKP.
Erdogan can legislate by fiat (in virtue of the state of emergency declared after the 2016 coup attempt that's still in effect); has purged the military, security services, judiciary, and educational institutions (which last are under federal control in Turkey); and has cowed the press through fines and prosecutions (take a look sometime at the English-language version of any Turkish newspaper that has one; the content will be unsettlingly saccharine and devoid of anything that might displease the current government). If the political opposition in Turkey ever genuinely threatened Erdogan he could remove that threat in short order using the full force of the state. As it is it's simply more convenient for him to allow them nominal victories while the Islamization of the country continues apace.
2nd 22, 24.
14: Quibble: Brazil isn't generally considered to be southern cone.
My internal system of outrage calibration insists that the appropriate response to the insurrection would be to hang Trump from a lamppost, but that can't be right, can it?
Of course it isn't right. Hang him from a proper, lawful, gallows.
We're doing a pretty good job capitalizing on our narrow governing margin and the agenda items are pretty damn progressive.
Stand to be corrected, but AFAIK this isn't true at all. Where's DC statehood? Where's HR1? Where's the pretty basic disclosures and CI law that would permanently exclude Trump from office? Progressive stuff is nice to have, but meaningless if the republic is lost. And Covid firefighting aside, how much progressive stuff has actually happened?
To hear local employers complaining to the newspaper, the extra unemployment plus the stimulus has fundamentally altered the labor supply in the United States.
with a "supreme court has 4 months from today to review, after which its jurisdiction expires" clause
How would this work? Why would it be a better idea than just giving them no jurisdiction at all?
fistik, thanks for explaining that about Turkey.
Welcome fistik, if you're new.
17: The army won't sit the next one out
Reasoning for this? Granted flag officers are likely further right than the military average, now and perhaps indefinitely, but those same officers didn't particularly enable Trump, and it seems deliberately stonewalled him at some points in the Nov-Jan period. Is there any reason to think they would move any further right, especially over just four years?
And also Yeet the Rich and Tijun from the other thread.
Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.
There is a species of argument that I don't get at all, and 42 is a good example. There's this implied subtext of "Are you saying you like Liz Cheney?" Who gives a shit about Liz Cheney as a person? Fuck Liz Cheney. But if she gets kicked out for the one principled stand she ever took in her life, it guarantees no Republican will ever take a principled stand again. Given that, the next question is: will the Republicans have the legal authority to ignore the outcome of the election and install the next next President? Because if they do, they're going to do it. Whether or not Liz Cheney is an awful person is completely besides the point.
The type of argument that 42 embodies is just a bizarre nonsequitor, and yet I see people make it all the time.
53- There are a lot of batshit officers so I don't know that much rightward movement is necessary for bad things to happen.
What drives the sentiment for me are arguments that essentially boil own to "but we *need* a reasonable Republican Party!" Sure, and I need a wine bottle that magically refills itself every time I pour the last glass. If the one principled stand she ever took is mere acknowledgment of plain reality, that's not really much of a principle.
"22: What exactly should the Democrats have done differently?"
Expel Hawley, Cruz, and a dozen reps.
Like, procedurally? Or through...insurrection?
Pass real elections reform (fairness criteria for districting and/multimeter districts, paper ballots only, ') with voting standards, with a "supreme court has 4 months from today to review, afterwhich it's jurisdiction expires" clause. National popular vote for prez, strip state leg of all role in vote certification.
HR1 doesn't do all these things, but I think they're still working on substantial vote reform.
Go after fox new etc: some fcc technical stuff to encourage unbundling, and go after all thier scammy advertisers (supplement makers, gold/bitcoin, etc). Prosecute all the white-collar fraudster which have become a core gop constituency. Spend some of the ridiculous amounts spent on political ads on buying local media.
I totally agree that these are hugely important!! I just don't see what they have to do with the Democrats failing to make hay out of the insurrection. They're shoring up the IRS, which is huge. I assume that white collar fraudsters are one their radar but it's not exactly the stuff that gets reported.
You want the DNC to buy up local news stations?
32 should be read wryly or regretfully, not earnestly.
Totally on brand that they went with a voice vote so no potentially embarrassing count (and also less "secret" within the caucus as to who voted which way. I do wonder if someone like Kitzinger will attempt to reveal the yeas v nays based on decibels.
I didn't know that, but I'd been wondering why they were all so eager to go on record either for or against expelling Cheney. It seemed like such an unforced error.
"but we *need* a reasonable Republican Party!"
Turn's out, you don't. We're super-majority Democrat here in CA and it turns out that moderate Dems will do the realtors and business trade unions' bidding and oppose progressive bills without reasonable Republicans to the right of them.
39. What is a "multimeter district"? My only referent for multimeters is about electronics.
67: We need the moderate Dems to be the Republican Party.
63: The House can quite legally expel a member from Congress; It happened to Jim "Beam me up, Scotty!" Trafficant after his bribery conviction in 2000. But it takes a 2/3rds vote so it's a dead letter in this Congress. I'd like to see them have tried, though!
67: We need more than one party that respects the rules of democracy and is amenable to reason and facts, so that when one party performs badly there is a competing party that reasonable people of good will can vote for without ushering in fascism. That other party doesn't have to be called the Republican Party.
I guess the left and right elements of the California Democratic Party can't, or shouldn't, split into two parties because they need to stay unified in opposition to the Republican Party, which poses a severe threat on the national level even if it's been reduced to a small minority in California.
Ultimately, is the U.S. just becoming ungovernable in its current form? I'd have a hard time blaming any Californian for voting to secede, except for the fact that you'd be leaving the rest of us behind to be ruled by fascists.
The United States isn't becoming ungovernable. It's being made ungovernable by the deliberate choice of a minority.
It comes to the same thing as a practical matter but I don't like the whole "passive voice when white conservatives do evil" trend.
It has been being made ungovernable by the deliberate choice of a minority since, IDK, Gingrich? Reagan?
It turns out you have a wide range of views and perspectives even when it's 2/3 Dems doing most of the debate. (Top-two primaries may, I grudgingly admit, have enhanced this by weakening the hold of the party faithful over elected officials. I don't know what things would like if we still had party primaries. But top-two was part of the political deal that helped Democrats fix the budget ten years ago, and that led to the supermajority.)
It has been being made ungovernable by the deliberate choice of a minority since, IDK, Gingrich? Reagan?
Jefferson.
The Jeffersons. Possibly the Airplane too.
This stuff isn't moving me as much as it once did. Maybe I've made progress towards acceptance.
What are people here thinking about in terms of plans for escaping the death camps?
83.2:. Death camps? Isn't it more likely that they will just shoot us?
84- Could be. I think we should be careful not to forget that hatred of us is primary, that is they are strongly motivated by hatred of us, and ultimately this means they are going to seek some kind of resolution for that hatred.