2020 US Election (Part Two)

[AmazonQueen]

I think the U.S. needs a whole new Constitution, made for modern-day governance and ways of doing things, and more difficult to easily abuse due to gaps and omissions in areas the Founding Fathers couldn't have foreseen. Mere Amendments I think are insufficient at this point.

This isn't real

@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.

Except they frequently don't have racial justice when Democrats run things. BLM supporters who live in New York or California often have things to complain about too.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

That's a very fair point!

 

[Farm Boy]

Sometimes mitigation is all you can do.

Yar. It's a solid tool in the conservationist mindset. No sarcasmo.

 

[Gori the Grey]

No, I have never advocated for any such thing

Right here:

A good person would vote for neither

 

[Patine]

Right here:

Yes, I said this. But I also talked about grassroots, write-in campaigns to vote both parties out in the same election. You're not quoting me completely. You're doing piecemeal quotes made to deliberately distort and obfuscate someone's viewpoint, like many of the disingenuous Fox News personality driven "news" show posts or panels like to do.

This isn't real.

It is very real. Your naivety on the issue is glaringly obvious.

 

[Kaitzilla]

The 2 parties are totally a scam.

Even when one gains total power in Congress and the Presidency, they do ...... nothing.

They suck in all that money and accomplish very little except get rich.

Name the top 5 legislative accomplishments in the past 20 years.

The mask has slipped off the Republicans this year who didn't even bother to have a platform.
I expect the Dems to follow soon.

 

[cardgame]

Yes, I said this. But I also talked about grassroots, write-in campaigns to vote both parties out in the same election.

Your naivety on the issue is glaringly obvious.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yes, I said this. But I also talked about grassroots, write-in campaigns to vote both parties out in the same election. You're not quoting me completely. You're doing piecemeal quotes made to deliberately distort and obfuscate someone's viewpoint, like many of the disingenuous Fox News personality driven "news" show posts or panels like to do.

For at least a week, I asked you, "then who should I vote for?" Finally, you gave your view on that bottom line issue: that people shouldn't vote, that the only moral position was not to vote. You're on a site whose population leans left. If you're trying to discourage voting here, you're working in the interests of Donald Trump. And if the only alternative you ever give is an unrealistic, pollyannaish, utopian, chimerical, pie-in-the sky, Cloud****oolandian fantasy of some omnibenovelent, Cincinnatian third-party magically drawing a sufficient write-in vote to simultaneously drive both parties out of office, and that no one should vote until that happens, then you are actively working to favor Donald Trump. As Lex says, own it! And if you're as intelligent as you always seem at pains to pass yourself of as, you must know this; so I'll go further than Lex: you're a Trumpist in effect and intention. He's got fanboys all over the world; your being Canadian doesn't exempt you from suspicion on that count.

 

[Patine]

If you're trying to discourage voting here, you're working in the interests of Donald Trump.

You are distorting the broader context of what I'm saying and buying into the same myth and misnomer that the incumbent ALWAYS AND AUTOMATICALLY benefits from every vote not cast for their main opponent, and your pushing the dystopian issue that EITHER Trump OR Biden DESERVE to be President, and not to be serving very long terms in prison, along with the great majority of the elected members of their two respective parties, and your disingenuously warping what I'm saying (as are others) to claim I'm giving support to Trump by using Joseph McCarthy-style siege mentality tactics - are all of you big fans of Joe McCarthy? Also, my viewpoint may be a bit alien to many Americans, because the U.S., unlike a lot of countries, is almost practically devoid of true political and ideological conviction - but that is a trait that is really worth cultivating quickly.

 

[Gori the Grey]

pushing the dystopian issue that EITHER Trump OR Biden DESERVE to be President

One of them WILL be.

You have the luxury of being able to sit behind a keyboard and be a jackass (your term) up in Canada. I and others here have to live the next four actual years of our actual lives in a country that is either moderately better or significantly, perhaps irreparably, worse.

 

[Patine]

I pretty much never use all-caps;

One of them WILL be.

You have the luxury of being able to sit behind a keyboard and be a jackass. I and others here have to live the next four actual years of our actual lives in a country that is either moderately better or significantly worse.

How about a nationwide general strike and an American Spring/Peaceful or Velvet Revolution set of protests that will shut the nation down and have the plutocrat who REALLY run the country screaming, to show you will not tolerate another of this monster? Oops, I forgot. That's not how Americans do things. Only other countries do that. That's not the American. Despite it having a much higher track record of ousting corrupt and tyrannical governments in other countries than Americans have historically had relying solely on their rigged ballot box that gives them so choice.

 

[Farm Boy]

No, it does. But the big show is fun to watch even as local politics is more important in almost every way. But we've convinced ourselves that individuals have no meaningful agency, so what is a group of local schmucks. You know, other than the people who get everything done everywhere.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Oops, I forgot. That's not how Americans do things.

Yes, when you offer your jejune "solutions" you seem regularly to forget that they won't happen in America. And therefore aren't solutions.

 

[Patine]

Yes, when you offer your jejune "solutions" you seem regularly to forget that they won't happen in America. And therefore aren't solutions.

I thought Donald Trumps' Presidency was the kind of thing long said that, "won't happen in America." Doesn't this mean that all the other such assumptions are potentially out the window, too?

 

[Gori the Grey]

Fine. That's where I'll join you, then: in the hope that something will unexpectedly swing my country in as positive a direction as Trump has swung it in a negative one.

 

[Ajidica]

The 2 parties are totally a scam.

Even when one gains total power in Congress and the Presidency, they do ...... nothing.

They suck in all that money and accomplish very little except get rich.

Name the top 5 legislative accomplishments in the past 20 years.

The mask has slipped off the Republicans this year who didn't even bother to have a platform.
I expect the Dems to follow soon.

ACA
Dodd-Frank
TARP
Other 'Save the Economy' bills from 2008-2010
CFPB
Post 2010 attempts were made to reach a 'Grand Bargain' on immigration and gun control, but that kept falling apart because of GOP intransigence.

That's five major legislative acts done in a very short period of time, and coincidentally, all passed with a Democratic majority. Once the GOP took the House, we can clearly see how meaningful legislation stalled and then upon the GOP taking the Senate, flipped over and burned in a ditch.
True, the GOP has passed 'major' legislation in recent years, but all of that was rammed through with last minute changes scribbled on the margins and/or 'repeal' legislation with little to no constructive action. No meaningful hearings either.

 

[Patine]

ACA
Dodd-Frank
TARP
Other 'Save the Economy' bills from 2008-2010
CFPB
Post 2010 attempts were made to reach a 'Grand Bargain' on immigration and gun control, but that kept falling apart because of GOP intransigence.

That's five major legislative acts done in a very short period of time, and coincidentally, all passed with a Democratic majority. Once the GOP took the House, we can clearly see how meaningful legislation stalled and then upon the GOP taking the Senate, flipped over and burned in a ditch.
True, the GOP has passed 'major' legislation in recent years, but all of that was rammed through with last minute changes scribbled on the margins and/or 'repeal' legislation with little to no constructive action. No meaningful hearings either.

Isn't it funny, though (in a gallows humour sort of way), that many of the most utterly repugnant and disgusting acts of Congress ever passed, like the Sedition Act of 1918, the Alien Registration Act, the National Security Act of 1947 (this is a BIG one), the Tonkin Bay Resolution, the (un)Patriot Act, and the big bailout of big banks in 2008, among others, all had strong and solid bipartisan support, with only a few dissenters on conscious and personal views, NOT party lines, for each? Isn't that an interesting phenomenon.

 

[Ajidica]

Isn't it funny, though (in a gallows humour sort of way), that many of the most utterly repugnant and disgusting acts of Congress ever passed, like the Sedition Act of 1918, the Alien Registration Act, the National Security Act of 1947 (this is a BIG one), the Tonkin Bay Resolution, the (un)Patriot Act, and the big bailout of big banks in 2008, among others, all had strong and solid bipartisan support, with only a few dissenters on conscious and personal views, NOT party lines, for each? Isn't that an interesting phenomenon.

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.

 

[innonimatu]

ACA
Dodd-Frank
TARP
Other 'Save the Economy' bills from 2008-2010
CFPB.

ACA served the purpose of defending and further entrenching the private insurance healthcare model.
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 think those were good bills?
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!

 

[Estebonrober]

ACA served the purpose of defending and further entrenching the private insurance healthcare model.
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 think those were good bills?
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 think he was saying they were big bills. Ie big things getting done.