2020 US Election (Part Two)

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@Estebonrober I mean unfortunately there's not much we can do to reform the senate or the EC. The EC can be stepped around, but only if we can get enough states to sign up for the Interstate Compact that equal at least 270 EC votes. That's been impossible so far and won't change in the immediate future. The Senate also can't be changed to elminate GOP minority rule without consent of every state or the addition of more states.

I don't see the Democrats carrying through with making DC and PR states even if they had the votes. And then if they did, the new SCOTUS would find ways to reverse statehood, as crazy as that would be. And to stop that, I don't see the Democrats packing SCOTUS.

Basically I feel everything is horrible and wrong and can't be fixed. We're at a checkmate, democracy point and have been since the Dems failed to take the Senate in 2018. It was a long shot then but it was basically the last point to effectively roll back minority rule without really radical action that the party just isn't capable of, temperamentally.

And while I appreciate and support the BLM protestors, they need to start more generally protesting the GOP and minority government and be less focused specifically on racial justice because they won't ever have racial justice so long as the GOP runs the country. Without protesting the GOP itself, they will never get the Democrats to change their tactics and approach.

He thought about it and made some overtures but was rebuffed. The last time the court makeup was changed was like 1869. But yeah, it can be changed and Roosevelt did talk about it and that was enough to get the SCOTUS to back down from some of their opposition to the new deal but it's still a radical move to pull off right now.

I don't think the threat of court packing will itself be enough to get Boofin' Brett to back down from eliminating Roe V Wade. He was pretty clear he was prepared to reap the whirlwind, after all.

I agree sadly. The silence from dem leaders is just deafening right now. Totally deafening.
 
But they weren't, really. I mean, they were about preventing changes! Discontentment with healthcare was boiling, ACA was a minimal effort necessary to pretend to resolve the problem. The financial system had cornered itself, TARP and the other interventions were the necessary moves to preserve its position.
American politics are dominated by ultra-conservative elements. People who are on top of the pyramid and want to keep it exactly as it is. Even the "big" things, when they become absolutely necessary and are done, are abut changing something so that everything remains the same.
 
ACA served the purpose of defending and further entrenching the private insurance healthcare model.
You Europeans are too spoiled by your universal health care to appreciate the good parts of the ACA, and see only its problems. It is hard to overstate just how terrible private health care in the US was pre-ACA, all the more so if one didn't get good coverage through their employer or had certain prexisting conditions. The Democrats pushed hard for a Medicare buy-in or public option, but kept falling a vote or two short (thanks Sleazeberman!).
Compared to an ideal NHS/UHC system, the ACA is pretty dodgy; but compared to what existed before, it is a lifesaver.

TARP and the other "save the economy" bills served the purpose of defending the "too big to fail" banks and corporations, keeping the same path that had led to the crisis.
You need to separate immediate crisis-fighting bills with the follow-up/reform bills. During the crisis, the US government threw money at the problem to cushion the landing. It may not have been a great plan, but it was a plan; which is more than can be said about the EU response to the later debt crisis....
I know you don't particularly like Adam Tooze, but I find his analysis of the early crisis compelling, that initially the US took the right steps - throw money at the problem to prevent a genuine meltdown while setting up currency swaps to shore up foreign banks.
Dodd-Frank was a huge and ambitious piece of legislation, that is still working its way through the rulemaking process at various regulators.
The Democrats were kicking around some genuinely good ideas on financial reform and boosting domestic manufacturing to try and restart the 'producers alliance', but that went out the window once 2010 massacred the Democratic ranks, and congresscritters went scurrying toward 'safe' and 'moderate' legislation. When looking at Democratic timidity post-2010, you need to look at how badly they were hurt by the ACA/crash legislation. The Democrats held massive hearings to figure out what went wrong with economic crisis, kept the global economy from collapsing, passed multiple stimulus bills (even if they ultimately weren't large enough), passed massive expansion of health care and affordability, and established the CFPB. How were they rewarded by voters? A humiliation in the midterms and backlash.

It's as with with the SC and indeed the two parties alternating in power: a good cop-bad cop show that is in reality about preserving the social hierarchy and, whenever possible, reinforcing that hierarchy aspect. Never let a good crisis go to waste. And the victims will even passionately campaign for their oppressors!
I'm starting to agree with Phrossack. This "you silly, blinkered Americans" shtick coming from smug Europeans is really getting on my nerves. I've had enough discussions with you for you to know I have a very long list of complaints about the Democratic Party and their myriad sins. However, that should not stop one from acknowledging genuinely positive steps the party has made over the years, especially the flurry of legislation between 2008 and 2010 when they had supermajority in House and Senate.
 
Nice job cherry picking, leaving out such cornerstones of American legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (Senate 76-24), Clean Air Act ( Senate 73-0), and Voting Rights Act (Senate 77-19), just to name a few.

I was pointing out many of the most repugnant and vile acts of Congress as having strong as solid bipartisan support. That's SPECIFICALLY what I said. Not reading my post again, eh? Or do you for some reason consider the three acts you listed to be among the most repugnant and vile passed by Congress? If not, your counter-point is irrelevant, disingenuous, distracting, and even obtuse.
 
You need to separate immediate crisis-fighting bills with the follow-up/reform bills. During the crisis, the US government threw money at the problem to cushion the landing. It may not have been a great plan, but it was a plan; which is more than can be said about the EU response to the later debt crisis....
I know you don't particularly like Adam Tooze, but I find his analysis of the early crisis compelling, that initially the US took the right steps - throw money at the problem to prevent a genuine meltdown while setting up currency swaps to shore up foreign banks.
Dodd-Frank was a huge and ambitious piece of legislation, that is still working its way through the rulemaking process at various regulators..

The "right steps" for what? To "save" the economic system as it existed - as it still exists. Obama protected all the big banks that committed outright fraud. Management remained in place, the same people in power. Occupy wall street was crushed by the government in an operation with an efficiency that Trump probably envies. Back to "normal" with increasing costs of healthcare and habitation, the rentier sectors of the economy came out on top from the crisis.

This is what you want to praise? Preserving the status quo that is exploitative, corrupt, unlawful even by its own (deliberately unenforced) laws? And governments in both the EU and the US did it as cheaply as they could get away with it. I recall a comment from one banker here on "european" austerity imposed with the full complicity of the national government, as the crisis was unfolding:
reporter: the people won't endure it...
banker: they'll endure, they'll endure! [mockingly]

The democrats were not helpless in the whole period from 2008 to 2016. What about appoint a treasury secretary who was not from a criminal organization? What about appointing a prosecutor who actually enforced the laws against criminal bank management? Executive power in the US can do a lot, the power was there but was used to shield the "owners" of the system from the well-deserved public anger at the time.

Tooze, while doing good analyses on what happened, defends the status quo and spends most of his time affirming his credentials in twitter and on the academic circuits. You can't get much more pro-status-quo that than. Like the greek fraud who was famous in the same way, Varoufarkis. He's looking like an industrious careerist who will end up in some conservative think-tank, going to the right parties and mingling with the right people... hope I turn out wrong but I'm very skeptical. Being charitable I could say this is Stockholm syndrome, except those people are far too knowledgeable to be unaware of it.

The current world financial system is build in purpose to enable tax evasion, money laundering, criminally by the wealthy, unpunished and supposedly nonpunishable. With governments having plausible deniability for their corruption, for their deliberate choice to allow it. This system is destructive to the vast majority of the world's population, it should not have been "saved", it must not be preserved.
 
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The current world financial system is build in purpose to enable tax evasion, money laundering, criminally by the wealthy, unpunished and supposedly nonpunishable. With governments having plausible deniability for their corruption, for their deliberate choice to allow it. This system is destructive to the vast majority of the world's population, it should not have been "saved", it must not be preserved.

I never like agreeing with you, but this is spot on.
 
Compared to an ideal NHS/UHC system, the ACA is pretty dodgy; but compared to what existed before, it is a lifesaver.

Which doesn't mean that the ACA is not, at its core, a minimum-necessary reform to preserve the existing system to the greatest degree possible.

The Democrats were kicking around some genuinely good ideas on financial reform and boosting domestic manufacturing to try and restart the 'producers alliance', but that went out the window once 2010 massacred the Democratic ranks, and congresscritters went scurrying toward 'safe' and 'moderate' legislation. When looking at Democratic timidity post-2010, you need to look at how badly they were hurt by the ACA/crash legislation. The Democrats held massive hearings to figure out what went wrong with economic crisis, kept the global economy from collapsing, passed multiple stimulus bills (even if they ultimately weren't large enough), passed massive expansion of health care and affordability, and established the CFPB. How were they rewarded by voters? A humiliation in the midterms and backlash.

Sorry but inno is much closer to right here. The Democrats got what they deserved after failing pretty hard on the financial system. They had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunityt to reconfigure the financial system and they didn't take it, whether out of malice or incompetence hardly matters now.

You can claim that they did the best they could in the face of opposition on the ACA, we all remember Lieberman vetoing the public insurance option, but those arguments simply don't apply to regulating the financial industry. If Obama had explained what was going on to the country, he could have destroyed the careers of any legislators who tried to stop real banking reform from going through. And from a policy standpoint, the key decisions only required executive power, not control of Congress.

Instead Obama covered his administration with the crap-stink of Wall Street and got outflanked in 2010 when the Republicans, basically accurately, painted the party as a bunch of out-of-touch elitist insiders, a narrative they are still struggling to discard.

In hindsight, this embrace of lawlessness, the transparent use of federal power to, as Obama himself put it when speaking to a group of bank executives, "stand between you and the torches and pitchforks", ie, to shield the criminals from public wrath or real legal accountability, led directly to Trump. More than anything else that moment is what's given people the mental excuse to say "well the Democrats are just as bad."
 
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In other news, looks like the Democrats are falling right into the Trump-McConnell trap.

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2...30k3Idh34AK7GEP3SFxlBSw39vDPd_XjGKLFfpv6HTZeg

My thoughts on this are that the Democrats lack the power to stop the nomination, and making the Supreme Court into an issue is bad because it is a winning issue for the Republicans (mostly since they have the power, but also because their demented legions of "abortion is the worst genocide in history" people care about this waaaaaaaaay more than even the most devoted RBG fans do).

The more the election is about the Supreme Court and not COVID, the better for Republicans.
 
The "right steps" for what? To "save" the economic system as it existed - as it still exists. Obama protected all the big banks that committed outright fraud. Management remained in place, the same people in power. Occupy wall street was crushed by the government in an operation with an efficiency that Trump probably envies. Back to "normal" with increasing costs of healthcare and habitation, the rentier sectors of the economy came out on top from the crisis.

This is what you want to praise? Preserving the status quo that is exploitative, corrupt, unlawful even by its own (deliberately unenforced) laws? And governments in both the EU and the US did it as cheaply as they could get away with it. I recall a comment from one banker here on "european" austerity imposed with the full complicity of the national government, as the crisis was unfolding:
reporter: the people won't endure it...
banker: they'll endure, they'll endure! [mockingly]

The democrats were not helpless in the whole period from 2008 to 2016. What about appoint a treasury secretary who was not from a criminal organization? What about appointing a prosecutor who actually enforced the laws against criminal bank management? Executive power in the US can do a lot, the power was there but was used to shield the "owners" of the system from the well-deserved public anger at the time.

For the record, I was talking about Congress, not Obama. He has a long list of sins when it comes to dealing with the Financial Crisis and the aftermath.
Congress, in the two year period the Democrats had a supermajority, had only so much legislative time to deal with the Financial Crisis. The stimulus bills, while not large enough, were still better than what most of Europe did, who went in the completely opposite direction. The CFPB was a major asset in getting banks to be about as honest we can expect a bank to be when dealing with consumer finance. Dodd-Frank was a major piece of financial reform that played a major role in keeping the Covid Crisis from turning into a financial meltdown. (Well, that and the ECB/Fed saying they would take all necessary steps to prop up the economy.)
Also, I think you need to remember what party we were dealing with. The Democrats have never been a particularly left-wing party, and with a few notable exceptions are all firmly in the center / center-left pro-business spheres. Now, we all agree the Democrats need to be dragged to the left, but that was not the party that was there in 2008.
Talking about the Democratic Party (not Obama) being able to drive policy for the 2008-2016 period doesn't hold up because once they lost the House, they lost their ability to pass legislation. Obama was not meaningfully connected to the Democratic legislature (which was one of his big selling points as an 'outsider') so they had very little influence with him to drive policy through the executive.

Sorry but inno is much closer to right here. The Democrats got what they deserved after failing pretty hard on the financial system. They had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunityt to reconfigure the financial system and they didn't take it, whether out of malice or incompetence hardly matters now.

You can claim that they did the best they could in the face of opposition on the ACA, we all remember Lieberman vetoing the public insurance option, but those arguments simply don't apply to regulating the financial industry. If Obama had explained what was going on to the country, he could have destroyed the careers of any legislators who tried to stop real banking reform from going through. And from a policy standpoint, the key decisions only required executive power, not control of Congress.

Instead Obama covered his administration with the crap-stink of Wall Street and got outflanked in 2010 when the Republicans, basically accurately, painted the party as a bunch of out-of-touch elitist insiders, a narrative they are still struggling to discard.

In hindsight, this embrace of lawlessness, the transparent use of federal power to, as Obama himself put it when speaking to a group of bank executives, "stand between you and the torches and pitchforks", ie, to shield the criminals from public wrath or real legal accountability, led directly to Trump. More than anything else that moment is what's given people the mental excuse to say "well the Democrats are just as bad."
Well, you aren't going to get any great defense of Obama's record on finance from me; besides pointing out that given his actual political beliefs, it is surprising how much 'progressive' legislation Democratic congresscritters did pass in the two years they held supermajorities given the tepid enthusiasm from the White House.

Also, let's just keep in mind that during this period, the GOP wasn't putting forward any meaningful alternatives and their policies ranged from "Let's do nothing"* to "stimulus spending is SOCIALISM". They were not pushing any legislation to hold Wall Street accountable; so I'm a little skeptical that the Democratic failure to 'take on' Wall Street resulted in their 2010 losses as the GOP was not doing anything to take on Wall Street, and indeed was seeking to repeal what little reform the Democrats had passed. The right wing backlash to the Democrats on Wall Street seems less a matter of righteous anger about state capture and more generic right-wing Teahadist anger.

*You know, the same policy that prompted Hank Paulson to get down on his knees and beg Pelosi not to do, because he realized he couldn't count on GOP votes to prevent a genuine collapse of the world economy.

In other news, looks like the Democrats are falling right into the Trump-McConnell trap.

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2...30k3Idh34AK7GEP3SFxlBSw39vDPd_XjGKLFfpv6HTZeg

My thoughts on this are that the Democrats lack the power to stop the nomination, and making the Supreme Court into an issue is bad because it is a winning issue for the Republicans (mostly since they have the power, but also because their demented legions of "abortion is the worst genocide in history" people care about this waaaaaaaaay more than even the most devoted RBG fans do).

The more the election is about the Supreme Court and not COVID, the better for Republicans.
I'm a little confused about what you want the Democrats to do with regards to the SC nomination. In one thread you are saying how the Democrats have to fight this tooth and nail, to prevent a 6-3 hard right majority overturning every piece of climate or voting legislation for the next 20 years. You also acknowledge that court packing is going to be a hard lift, as it would require the Democrats to get a supermajority in the senate (already way above optimistic predictions) or abolish the filibuster which, while an option, is a dangerous option.
So what do the Democrats do? They have to oppose Barrett, for both ideological reasons and electoral reasons.
 
Also, let's just keep in mind that during this period, the GOP wasn't putting forward any meaningful alternatives and their policies ranged from "Let's do nothing"* to "stimulus spending is SOCIALISM". They were not pushing any legislation to hold Wall Street accountable; so I'm a little skeptical that the Democratic failure to 'take on' Wall Street resulted in their 2010 losses as the GOP was not doing anything to take on Wall Street, and indeed was seeking to repeal what little reform the Democrats had passed. The right wing backlash to the Democrats on Wall Street seems less a matter of righteous anger about state capture and more generic right-wing Teahadist anger.

I wouldn't posit that as the sole cause. Good old-fashioned racist backlash against Obama, among other issues, surely played a role. But given the level of popular disillusionment, a truly strong response to the crisis might have really changed the outcome of the following elections. It would have forced the Republicans into the position of obviously being the corrupt insiders.

In one thread you are saying how the Democrats have to fight this tooth and nail, to prevent a 6-3 hard right majority overturning every piece of climate or voting legislation for the next 20 years

Where did I say that? I said the Democrats might need to take extreme measures to sideline the court if that happens. That's not the same as saying the Democrats need to fight this nomination. I think I have been consistent in saying that the Democrats do not appear to have the power to stop it, if 4 Republicans aren't going to join them in doing so.

Whatever measures the Democrats take, the point is that they will have to happen in the future, or more accurately a future in which the Democrats actually gain control over the Presidency and Congress. It's a waste of time to fuss about this nomination from their current position which amounts to impotence.

I think the Supreme Court is a winning issue for the Republicans because, ultimately, for Democrats it's a hopeless fight.

The issue is plain as day: Republicans have the power to control appointments to the court and they're using it. To get the power Democrats need to win the elections. The best way to do that is keep the election about losing issues for the Republicans, COVID and the failure of governance around it. The Supreme Court is a winning issue for the Republicans, at least imo.
Maybe it would be different if the Democrats controlled the Senate and could really stop a new justice from being appointed until Trump was out. But that isn't the case.
 
The background to this is that I'm not sure many Democrats truly get the extent to which abortion opponents are committed to this thing. Their level of commitment is frightening, far beyond even the most devoted fans of RBG. We do not want to induce them to turn out en masse because suddenly the election is about Roe v Wade, even though the issue around the court is settled for now because, win or lose the election, the Republicans are appointing the next justice.
 
The background to this is that I'm not sure many Democrats truly get the extent to which abortion opponents are committed to this thing. Their level of commitment is frightening, far beyond even the most devoted fans of RBG. We do not want to induce them to turn out en masse because suddenly the election is about Roe v Wade, even though the issue around the court is settled for now because, win or lose the election, the Republicans are appointing the next justice.
Are there that many single-issue abortion voters out there who otherwise would not turn out for Trump? Speaking anecdotally, all the abortion-voters I know were going Trump anywhere. Politico also ran an article recently where they interviewed a number of Wisconsin suburban voters, and on the issue of abortion, everyone who cared about it were already turning out for Trump or were going to but just didn't want to admit it in public.
 
There's a chance that McConnell pushing a justice through before the election hurts Trump. With the court 'won', they may decide to sit out the vote because of underlying uneasiness with Trump or because they realize this election is probably lost.

To be clear: most of his voters live in an alternate reality where Trump is perfect and wins all things, but some small fraction will be a bit better grounded and therefore can lose the motivation to vote. As we saw in 2016, our EC system means these things can be decided on the margins instead of the bulk. This is also why the GOP spends so much effort to disenfranchise 10,000 here, 10,000 there, even though we're a country of 300 million.
 
It‘s not about turning out voters. But if all the public discussion is about abortion and the supreme court, you‘re not discussing Covid or any other of the disasters by Trump. This way, „undecided“ and „uninterested“ voters can vote for Trump while not having really thought through these other issues. This tactic is a defensive one which seems like a bad one when what Trump really needs is a hail mary pass - but it seems like all the Republicans got anymore. At least, it cements the status quo for them?
 
I am leery of the 'secret Trump supporter' vote being much of a meaningful thing. It was thought to exist in 2016 but did not actually turn up. The polls actually outperformed historical averages in 2016 in terms of accuracy. --> "But Hillary was projected to win!" is a misunderstanding of how polls work, or at least only restricting your viewpoint to bad polls. The non-garbage polls gave him about a 1/3 chance of winning and he did so by squeaking by with what amounted to a couple of coin-tosses in key states. And as I pointed out elsewhere, the margin of victory was within the margin of disenfranchised voters in those states which is something a poll has a hard time catching.

It‘s not about turning out voters.
Every election is a matter of turnout for the Democrats. The entire governmental structure is titled against popular rule such that they have to consistently turn out at a much higher rate in order to win any power. Unfortunately, liberal voters are historically unreliable and do not turn out consistently. If they did, the GOP would be shut out of power at the national level as there are many millions more registered Democrats than Republicans.
 
I am leery of the 'secret Trump supporter' vote being much of a meaningful thing. It was thought to exist in 2016 but did not actually turn up. The polls actually outperformed historical averages in 2016 in terms of accuracy. --> "But Hillary was projected to win!" is a misunderstanding of how polls work, or at least only restricting your viewpoint to bad polls. The non-garbage polls gave him about a 1/3 chance of winning.
Sure, but comparing the polls to the election results showed that the "undecided" voter broke heavily for Trump, which, if I'm remembering the 538 analysis right, pushed the election to Trump.
Personally, I just don't see how there could be that many genuinely 'undecided' voters, as opposed to voters saying they are 'undecided' to cover their inevitable Trump vote.
 
Sure, but comparing the polls to the election results showed that the "undecided" voter broke heavily for Trump, which, if I'm remembering the 538 analysis right, pushed the election to Trump.
Personally, I just don't see how there could be that many genuinely 'undecided' voters, as opposed to voters saying they are 'undecided' to cover their inevitable Trump vote.
I have issues drawing broad conclusions based on 70,000 votes. The undecideds across the nation may have broken heavily for Trump but other than those 70,000, it didn't matter. He was crushed in the popular vote. It's a fluke of how our system works that he won.

I also think we can't discount how much Hilary was hated then, versus how much Trump is hated now. I can see people breaking for Trump not because they were necessarily embarrassed to do so but at the end of the day because they didn't like the cut of Hilary's pantsuit. This would make them less of a secret Trump voter and more of a secret Hillary hater.
 
Every election is a matter of turnout for the Democrats. The entire governmental structure is titled against popular rule such that they have to consistently turn out at a much higher rate in order to win any power. Unfortunately, liberal voters are historically unreliable and do not turn out consistently. If they did, the GOP would be shut out of power at the national level as there are many millions more registered Democrats than Republicans.

Sure, but I was talking about the Republican strategy of having a Supreme Court fight now thus forcing the discussion on that topic. That strategy isn‘t about turning out more voters.

The whole calculation is simple really: People know Trump better now + Biden isn‘t a woman like Hillary was = those 70k votes should shift. But then again, the election is about more than just the President.
 
NYT said:
Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
The least this 'billionaire' could do is pay more in taxes than I did.
 
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