Is Donald Trump Done for?

[hobbsyoyo]

I already addressed this point specifically. You can't blame this entirely on voter participation when voter suppression and gerrymandering have been central focuses of conservatives going on two decades now.

Scott Walker just formed a new GOP group to show state legislatures how to resist attempts at rolling back gerrymandering/disenfranchisement and how to undercut incoming administrations when the GOP loses elections. Making sure poor people and people of color (who are young) can't vote or otherwise making their votes not count is being pushed by conservatives (who are old). Even here you can't blame us entirely though clearly we need to step up.

I think you are underestimating the breadth and depth of our problems if you think just turning up to vote is going to fix everything or give us everything we demand. The entire socioeconomic system is working against us as is the political process.

 

[rah]

And I'm saying all those can be overcome by voting. The numbers are there and will continue to improve.

You can't deny that young people aren't voting enough and that it would make the difference.

And I'll give you a clue. Even when you get power, people will still vote for their own benefit. It's been happening since people started voting and it's not likely to change.

 

[El_Machinae]

Everybody scrambles for a piece of the pie. In the mid-eighties, people didn't realize how the Nash equilibrium was going to result in economic bifurcation. People thought that a rising tide lifts all boats. You've got to remember, the nature of money literally changed during the course of their lives.

We are at a good Crossroads, where Gen X can actually collude with the millennials to effect change. We have to remember that the same thing happened to the Boomers that happened to the subsequent Generations, some were able to collect savings that compounded faster than growth. Some weren't.

If the underlying Theory, that lower taxes lead to faster growth, was true then a simple wealth tax could create the ability to fund all the programs that we want funded. We let growth be faster than it would have been had Boomers been allowed to collect their own savings, and now it's time to reap the rewards of that growth

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@rah Democrats got 10 million more votes in 2018 and picked up 40 seats. The GOP got 6 million more votes in 2010 and picked up 60 seats. That's 50% more seats with 40% less votes. Dude, take the point that this goes beyond turnout and that turnout is in turn affected by voter suppression which has run rampant in the last 20 years.

Even when you get power, people will still vote for their own benefit.

I disagree with the implication that this has to as happen to the point of the exclusion of benefit to out-groups. LBJ and his coalition passed important civil rights legislation that helped lots of non-whites. Which, by the way, older conservatives have been rolling back. The lack of DoJ pre-clearance of racist voting laws certainly handed the Georgia governship over to the GOP this year. Restricting felon votes similarly handed the Florida governorship to the GOP as well - and the GOP is now moving to roll back the felon re-enfranchisment that the voters passed to rectify the situation.

Even when we win with votes, we lose. Wisconsin had a whole goddamn shadow cabinet (82 appointees!) fighting their Democrat governor and Scott Walker is going on a road tour to show other state parties how to emulate his disgraceful loss.

But you keep acting like this is our fault or within our power to stop by simply voting...

 

[rah]

What, are no boomers democrats?
I just have a problem with grouping everyone in that age group as the reason for every evil in the universe.
Like when the next generation takes over, all the ills of the world will be magically fixed. There will be evil in the next generation too.

But until you vote, you got nothing. Work on that.

 

[AmazonQueen]

@rah Democrats got 10 million more votes in 2018 and picked up 40 seats. The GOP got 6 million more votes in 2010 and picked up 60 seats. That's 50% more seats with 40% less votes. Dude, take the point that this goes beyond turnout and that turnout is in turn affected by voter suppression which has run rampant in the last 20 years.

I disagree with the implication that this happens to the point of the exclusion of benefit to out-groups. LBJ and his coalition passed important civil rights legislation that helped lots of non-whites. Which, by the way, older conservatives have been rolling back. The lack of DoJ pre-clearance of racist voting laws certainly handed the Georgia governship over to the GOP this year. Restricting felon votes similarly handed the Florida governorship to the GOP as well - and the GOP is now moving to roll back the felon re-enfranchisment that the voters passed to rectify the situation.

Even when we win with votes, we lose. Wisconsin had a whole goddamn shadow cabinet (82 appointees!) fighting their Democrat governor and Scott Walker is going on a road tour to show other state parties how to emulate his disgraceful loss.

But you keep acting like this is our fault or within our power to stop by simply voting...

And you keep acting as if its an entire generations fault regardless of how they actually voted. If someone tries this sort of blame game with regard to race or religion you'd be the first to protest but somehow its fine with age to just treat all people of a certain age as if they collectively decided en masse to do this.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

We're talking in generalities because neither of you have anything meaningful to say about the specifics put forth by me. If you won't even acknowledge, much less discuss the statistics and specific examples put forth then all we're reduced to talking about is general voting patterns.

Old people tend to vote conservative and young people liberal. Conservatives politicians enact regressive policies that specifically harm young people all the time including voter suppression.

Therefore old people are wrecking the country.

 

[rah]

I gave statistics. The youth have a considerable numbers advantage and refuse to vote in a big enough percentage to change things.
I don't have to offer anything else up. The number advantage would outdo every excuse you've given. The numbers are that slanted.
Blame the right cause. Youth doesn't vote.

But yeah, we get it. Old is bad, youth is good. Thanks for the news flash. That has never been voiced before in the history of man.
Go out and change that.

 

[AmazonQueen]

We're talking in generalities because neither of you have anything meaningful to say about the specifics put forth by me. If you won't even acknowledge, much less discuss the statistics and specific examples put forth then all we're reduced to talking about is general voting patterns.

Old people tend to vote conservative and young people liberal. Conservatives politicians enact regressive policies that specifically harm young people all the time including voter suppression.

Therefore old people are wrecking the country.

Its the conclusions that you draw that are wrong.
Conservative measures harm both young and old, unless you are rich.
Not all older people vote for conservatives and not all the young are liberal.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Don't forget, Boomers also gave us Celine Dion!

 

[rah]

And we have yet to see any evidence that youth will do differently.

And if the argument was Conservatives caused the problems, you'd probably get less blow back. It's when you over generalize and take it to all old people, that's where it just sounds silly. And insulting because it's just blatant ageism.

 

[onejayhawk]

What chance did the combined might of Obama's CIA, DOJ, and FBI, even with compliant news outlets at heel, ever stand against George Papadoppoulopudous, age 28? We all saw the slaughter coming.

This is the strangest thing I have seen all week. Truly bizarre.

The fact that Obama's CIA, DoJ, and FBI were involved is the main point to take away. That is the biggest scandal of the century to date and ranks with the big ones of the 20th century.

The fact that they couldn't dig up anything significant is another point. That they went so far into the rabbit hole that George's name popped up is a third. They tried hard.

J

 

[rah]

Did they release the full report over night for review? Please post a link so I can read it. thx.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Did they release the full report over night for review? Please post a link so I can read it. thx.

They did. It consists of 3 words:
Her Emails Banghazi.

 

[Estebonrober]

Don't forget, Boomers also gave us Celine Dion!

Its like they hate everything about human existence!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

For any faults we may have, we boomers deserve some credit for having intervened for the youth between them and the greatest* generation.




*Who defined themselves as "we fought the war to end all wars and deserve absolute idolization from all who come after despite being totally selfish for the rest of our lives."

 

[Birdjaguar]

Nice list of things we got and you didn't, maybe.

Baby boomers born 1946-1964. Oldest boomers are about 74 youngest about 54. Boomers didn't enter the workforce until the 70s and didn't begin to take the reigns of power until the 90s. All those in Congress who are over 74 are not Boomers.

• Single income families
• Living wages for unskilled labor
  • Min wage is worth 64% less now than it was in 1969
    
  • And there were less truly minimum wage jobs as a proportion of the job market back then Beginning in the 80s good jobs moved overseas. More stuff could be made for less, priced less and still be profitable. America's standard of living went up. The job market changed, but few people thought about how education should change to accommodate the switch. No one anticipated the future. This is nothing new.
• Non-family roommates have climbed as people can no longer afford independence
• Delayed age of first childbirth and less children being born Yes, we did that, so what? My wife an I worked and waited to have kids so we could support them properly. We had two and not four.
• Delayed age of first marriage (probably for the best though!)
  
• Union participation used to be much higher; now we have laws restricting labor and a culture of hatred of unions Reagan worked hard to destroy unions and the movement of manufacturing jobs overseas did the rest.
  
• Tenured positions at universities have been turned into low-wage adjunct jobs. College tenure is broken. Tenured profs are overpaid and over benefited leaving no room for well paid non tenured teachers. It is an industry sector problem, but university professors have always been an elitist class. The fact that everyone wants tenure and its security is nothing new. You have to play by the rules to get it, even if those rules are bad. On top of that school economics are terrible and a real shift has taken place to emphasize high sports profiles as success.
• Teachers can no longer afford to live in the cities they teach in Housing has gotten more expensive in sought after neighborhoods. Well off millennials keep driving up the price of houses in San Francisco, Austin, Chicago, NYC, Boston. So have lots of things. I paid $.25 a gallon for gasoline in HS. There is lots of affordable housing in less desirable locations.... If a state paid teachers more then.... talk to your state legislature and pay more local tax.
  • Meaningful pay increases stopped for many teachers 10-20 years ago Teachers were always underpaid. I taught in public and private schools in the 70s and left because the pay was too low. Teachers don't make a good living because state legislatures don't fund education. This is not new.
• College access has risen but the entirety of the costs have been pushed to students who are overwhelmingly young
  • Demand is also much higher now than it was in the 60's-90's so the improved access is as much a function of natural increases with demand as any access-focused efforts.
• Healthcare costs have risen far faster than inflation while conservatives spend political capital attacking social programs
  • Social security and Medicaid are perpetually under attack They have been since they were enacted. This is nothing new.
• Home ownership has declined for the young significantly Mostly because they want a nice home in a great neighborhood as a starter home. My wife and I literally built our first home. You know, poured concrete, bought wood, laid a floor, built walls, put on a roof. It took us ten years before anyone would consider it finished. It was 1800 sq feet.
• A refusal to endorse legislative solutions to social problems
  • Gay marriage was forced by the courts The boomers built on the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s and brought you women's rights, gay rights, equal justice. Conservative boomers and Christians worked to erode that process.
• A refusal to do anything about climate change Student activism of the 60s and 70s brought you clean air and water.
• The Reagan era ushered in the Christian right, conservative talk radio and gave voice to the conservative voters who sided with Nixon on Vietnam and the value of war in general. The boom in globalization and building of great wealth through banking maneuvers began with Reagan and enabled the financing of ongoing right wing efforts to control the agenda. Koch brothers etc. Huge amounts of unproductive wealth were created in the 80s and devoted to conservative causes. Many of those who became rich then were not boomers, but of the previous decade. those people and that money have lead the charge against
• Voting rights
• Gun control
• Ending homelessness
• Improving VA services
• Expanding welfare
• Increases in restrictive voting laws and practices
• A refusal to confront mass shootings
• The number of American veterans of Iraq is beginning to rival Vietnam's draft population
  • PTSD is actually worse in Iraq/Afghanistan vets due to the number of and length of deployments soldiers served relative to their Vietnam counterparts
  • Meanwhile the VA is broken and underfunded but all our money went to tax cuts for the rich (and mostly older) instead
• Welfare benefits were massively restricted started in the 90's
• More single parent households
• Kids stay longer with their parents before moving out due to housing costs and low wages

Keep in mind that from 2008 for about 6-8 years we were in a huge recession. Those happen. Their will be more. A whole lot of people were unprepared and lost jobs. An economy goes not go up forever. Boomers made divorce easier for all. We removed the stigma of being divorced and people have taken advantage of that freedom. Relationships are difficult. Too difficult for many.

This is all off the top of my head so I don't have sources. I proactively retract anything I got wrong here.

 

[Lexicus]

Gun control? Ending homelessness? Expanding welfare? Are these jokes or something?

 

[Takhisis]

On the boomers v. the world issue… you'll find that there were and still are a lot of younger people (20s-40s) who will also have voted for the Donalds, conservatives, and so on.

I remember that, about ten years ago, in my university there was a conflict with the (federal) executive because they'd only approved $1050 million of the yearly $2000 that was needed to keep the university running (don't even mention repairs or expansion) and still a lot of the students were supporters of that absurdly destructive government.

So it's not just olds (Dachs dixit) who can and do get it wrong.

He has filed his report, which means that his investigation is finished. There has been no indictment of Trump announced, which means that Trump is in the clear. QED. In fact, J didn't go far enough. Trump has been not just exonerated of guilt, but proven innocent by a full legal process. And not only that, he can't be tried for any crime he should ever commit in the future, because that would be double jeopardy. Indeed, he has been cleared henceforth to openly conspire with hostile foreign powers to corrupt the American electoral process. More, he is explicitly charged with doing so--by a new amendment to the Constitution clarifying previously obscure executive powers and responsibilities. He has been placed under a positive legal obligation to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. In any games of Monopoly he might play, he starts the game with the "Get out of jail free" card, and it returns to him when played. Furthermore, he has been granted a plenary indulgence. Parking tickets he may have been issued are now to be paid by the officer who issued the citation; if deceased, by that officer's heirs. The color symbolizing innocence will no longer be white, but will henceforward be orange. William Blake's "Songs of Innocence" are to be retitled "Songs of Trump" in any editions published in the United States of America.

It's all in Mueller's report, if you'd just take some time to read it.

You forgot to mention her emails and to sign it ‘-Grey’ after a blank line.

Don't forget, Boomers also gave us Celine Dion!

And we have yet to see any evidence that youth will do differently.

We need an ‘interesting post juxtapositions thread’ given how these two posts were made back-to-back.

 

[innonimatu]

@Birdjaguar: the fact that polarization has increased between expensive, "desirable locations", and the rest should tell you a lot about how bad inequality of income and failure of public services is affecting your country.

What defined the shift in the 90s was that greed became virtuous in public space, in all kinds of speech It wasn't so yet in the 80s when the yuppies were looked down as despicable people.