The 2024 US Presidential Election

[Birdjaguar]

There's an obvious easy solution: US gives Guantanamo back to Cuba, and then the prisoners are Cuba's problem.

Still on the table: why can't the Dems convince enough people to vote for them so they can close the gap between rich and poor?

Well the US has no intention of giving Guantanamo back any time soon. That is like asking Putin to give Kaliningrad back or England to give up Gibraltar.

Solving the the inequity gap in the US (or anywhere) is not a simple thing. There are at least two parts to the problem: income and assets. Income can be taxed and the tax rates can be changed (and they have been many times since the 1913 16th amendment made taxing legal. Tax bills must pass congress and be signed by the president. They are fought over rigorously. Assets are different. There is no provision in the constitution to tax assets. A new law would have to be created, and not be over turned by SCOTUS, permitting it. How to tax assets is a challenge. Some would like to just confiscate most of it. How much wealth should people be allowed to accumulate? Hard questions.

In addition, the Electoral college system allows small (in population) states to have great power in choosing the president and most of those are GOP strongholds. They would never allow any kind of asset tax to take away the wealth of their main supporters.

Since 1992 the GOP has won only one presidential election with the popular vote: Bush 2004. In all the others the Dems have won the popular vote even if they lost the electoral vote and the election. In 2020 Trump had 46.9% of the popular vote and Biden had 51.3%

 

[Akka]

Trump dying would be funny but what would be really hilarious would be if he had a stroke or something and ended up a vegetable

What would be even more hilarious is that it would actually improves his presidential abilities.

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Well the US has no intention of giving Guantanamo back any time soon. That is like asking Putin to give Kaliningrad back or England to give up Gibraltar.

Solving the the inequity gap in the US (or anywhere) is not a simple thing. There are at least two parts to the problem: income and assets. Income can be taxed and the tax rates can be changed (and they have been many times since the 1913 16th amendment made taxing legal. Tax bills must pass congress and be signed by the president. They are fought over rigorously. Assets are different. There is no provision in the constitution to tax assets. A new law would have to be created, and not be over turned by SCOTUS, permitting it. How to tax assets is a challenge. Some would like to just confiscate most of it. How much wealth should people be allowed to accumulate? Hard questions.

In addition, the Electoral college system allows small (in population) states to have great power in choosing the president and most of those are GOP strongholds. They would never allow any kind of asset tax to take away the wealth of their main supporters.

Since 1992 the GOP has won only one presidential election with the popular vote: Bush 2004. In all the others the Dems have won the popular vote even if they lost the electoral vote and the election. In 2020 Trump had 46.9% of the popular vote and Biden had 51.3%

That explains why some anarchist groups are planning "Fear the Poor" flash mobs and fun runs before the US election.
19 September is International Run Like a Pirate Day.
(The bigger the mob, the bigger the mall, the more fun for y'all!)

 

[Gorbles]

Please explain more... I don't follow you on this distinction.


Also... Are you responding to the (my) TL;DR, or did you watch the video and are responding to that?

Your summary, sorry for not making that clear.

I can check out the video if I find some time, but the time required is a lot more than responding to your presumably-accurate summary. It's easier for me to digest text.

Anyhow you summed it up as failing on a single issue, where Democrat supporters would judge that more harshly than Republican voters. To me, that's an inverse of the actual responsibility (which is why I mentioned modifying Roe). Making impossible promises is the party's problem - not one of voter standards.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I was just randomly bombarded by a yahoo news article that apparently says Trump won some primary or another. I think that means he is on the road toward becoming the replublican candidate. So my question to you all is if that happens what do you think his odds are of winning?

 

[AdrienIer]

Gut says about 75%

 

[Sommerswerd]

Your summary, sorry for not making that clear.

I can check out the video if I find some time, but the time required is a lot more than responding to your presumably-accurate summary. It's easier for me to digest text.

Anyhow you summed it up as failing on a single issue, where Democrat supporters would judge that more harshly than Republican voters. To me, that's an inverse of the actual responsibility (which is why I mentioned modifying Roe). Making impossible promises is the party's problem - not one of voter standards.

I don't think the issue was that the promises themselves were impossible, as much as it was that they were more difficult to accomplish and they (Democrats) were making many more promises overall.

An analogy/illustration that springs to mind... imagine we, the voters as parents, paying tuition and the Democrats or Republicans as our children attending school. The Republican- politician "student" tells the parent that they plan to take mostly the easier, entry-level courses and the parent-voter is accepts that. Then they bring home a report card that has a mixture of grades, with one each of A, B, C, D and F. Their parent-voter pats them on the head and says "Good effort champ, just keep trying your best" and promptly writes the check for next semester.

Meanwhile the Democratic-politician "student" promises the parent-voter they will take a bunch of difficult (AP, Honors, advanced etc.), courses, which the parent agrees and is proud. On their report card, they get mostly As and Bs but they get a C or D in one class. The parent-voter becomes irate "How could you possibly get such a poor grade in this important class!?! Do you know how much I am paying for your tuition?!? You're so ungrateful, such a failure! Why should I even bother paying your tuition??"

That is my sense of the difference O'Donnell is drawing between Democrats and Republicans.

 

[Sommerswerd]

It's just that the two parties are massively asymmetrical right out of the gate.

It's not (as we sometimes talk about it) Party 1 offering one set of proposals for change and Party 2 offering a different set of proposals for change.

One side wants change (development, progress). The other, conservative, is defined precisely as not wanting things to change (unless to go backwards).

When conservative politicians don't get anything done, even block things from getting done, they are doing their job!

As massively dysfunctional as this last session of Congress has been, the Rs got done exactly what their voters hoped for from them.

(Working only from the tl;dr: for me he's overthinking it; it's a simpler matter. I mean, maybe his "Ds promise more" is tied to my core point here.)

It might be even simpler. It seems that Republican voters prioritize their candidates winning, while Democratic voters prioritize the candidates "doing the right thing", at least what they, the individual voter sees as "the right thing".

So if the Republican candidate accomplishes little or nothing they promised, its OK, as long as they deliver the most important thing, which is winning the election. Whereas Democrats expect/want their candidates to take positions that will or may cause them to lose the election(s) as long as their particular policy goals are met.

 

[Kyriakos]

This is still the funniest US election campaign advertisement. I am America

I doubt we will see such from Biden or Trump.

 

[Gorbles]

I don't think the issue was that the promises themselves were impossible, as much as it was that they were more difficult to accomplish and they (Democrats) were making many more promises overall.

An analogy/illustration that springs to mind... imagine we, the voters as parents, paying tuition and the Democrats or Republicans as our children attending school. The Republican- politician "student" tells the parent that they plan to take mostly the easier, entry-level courses and the parent-voter is accepts that. Then they bring home a report card that has a mixture of grades, with one each of A, B, C, D and F. Their parent-voter pats them on the head and says "Good effort champ, just keep trying your best" and promptly writes the check for next semester.

Meanwhile the Democratic-politician "student" promises the parent-voter they will take a bunch of difficult (AP, Honors, advanced etc.), courses, which the parent agrees and is proud. On their report card, they get mostly As and Bs but they get a C or D in one class. The parent-voter becomes irate "How could you possibly get such a poor grade in this important class!?! Do you know how much I am paying for your tuition?!? You're so ungrateful, such a failure! Why should I even bother paying your tuition??"

That is my sense of the difference O'Donnell is drawing between Democrats and Republicans.

I'm sorry, I get what you're saying, but to me this is just about standards again. I don't need convincing that Republicans are saying any old thing. But the thing is, they might phrase it better, but so are the Democrats.

Something that's a "high grade" makes no difference if it isn't going to pass. But "vote for us for the marginal chance we might be able to do the thing we're literally demanding your vote for" understandably isn't as marketable.

And that's all it's about, promises be damned. The pressure's off once they're in power, and they've shown that repeatedly. If they legislated as hard as they campaigned, maybe the trust level would be higher? Instead it always seems (as a Brit) that things can't get done because of circumstances you can never blame the party for.

I dunno man. I'm a senior developer. If I estimate and scope out a project and I don't factor in the possible unknowns, that's on me. I don't get a repeated free pass for misunderstanding the challenges every single time.

 

[schlaufuchs]

It’s that^

The democrats and their boosters shout up and down that x election is the most important election of our lifetime. That electing them is the only way to ensure the protection of minorities and minorities‘ rights. That if the other side is allowed to win, they will unleash unfathomable destruction from on high as an inexorable force of reactionary violence. That the threat of the other side holding the presidency presents a threat not only to our political goals, but to the very democracy and our constitutional rights. They will be able to ride roughshod over it all, enacting their political vision with impunity. And then the democrats win and suddenly it’s “the president is powerless to act.” And “you know we would love to help but we don’t have the 60 senators necessary to break a filibuster, maybe you should have voted harder.” And to that I say, which is it? Is the president an insuperable, omnipotent force or a toothless figurehead? Because if the former, why then does Biden refuse to exercise that force on the existential and humanitarian crises that demand such histrionic demands for electoral support, and if the latter, why should it matter who wins in November?

And it’s not even like the democrats will for the best but settle for a mixed bag. As is so frequently pointed out, for cycle on cycle the democrats were perfectly capable of passing abortion rights into law and didn’t. I seem to recall in 2020 a lot of cries that a Biden election would mean an end to kids in cages, a return of fairness, and sane and humane handling of refugees. Instead we got mostly the same kids in cages, and even now Biden is grandstanding about inviting Trump to come negotiate border policy, a border policy that was once so heinous that its architect needed to be stopped immediately!

Now you might say that that was a simple piece of political theater to embarrass the Republicans. But that belies the Democrats’ professed role as the party of conscience, of empathy, the protectors of the downtrodden. This great mass of suffering people is little more than a cheap prop to be deployed in an idiotic political stunt. A token to bounce off the Republicans’ faces, damn the consequences to the token. That’s the sort of thing that sets off alarm bells to me. When is it going to be my rights, my dignity, my person, that is dangled before the jaws of the fascist who cares little for this political theater and won’t hesitate to take the opportunity to shred my body to ribbons? This isn’t the behavior of an honors student whose reach unfortunately exceeds their grasp from time to time. Rather, this is a child who claims honors classes will be a cinch, fails to show up to a single class, doodles on the final, and then blames the teacher for their poor grade.

 

[Lexicus]

And to that I say, which is it? Is the president an insuperable, omnipotent force or a toothless figurehead?

I mean, the whole point of this argument is that Biden and the Democrats respect the Constitution and the limitations it sets on their exercise of power (something that I have complex feelings about since I mostly think the Constitition is trash but also recognize that, realistically, if we throw it out we are going to get a reactionary dictatorship, not the Paris Commune) and Trump and the GOP don't. So this is not entirely an either-or question.

I am not planning to vote for Biden because the electoral college means my vote is purely performative in any case, and Biden has, to put it lightly, not inspired me to take performative action on his behalf. But I would certainly vote for Biden if I was in a swing state. I'm sure I have many of the same criticisms and issues with Biden as you do, but I have little doubt that a second Trump term is going to be much worse than a second Biden term on all the issues I care about. That said, of course, if Biden can't get people to vote for him that's Biden's fault and not anyone else's.

Edited: Addendum to first point: i also agree with you that Democrats are often full of horsehocky and that's why they don't fight for things, it isn't purely a matter of their hands being tied by the law. And even where the Supreme Court is going to strike things down, I think there's political benefit in doing the thing and making the Court strike it down because it demonstrates commitment to the thing, e.g. how Trump just went ahead and did stuff and some of it did get struck down but he thereby demonstrated to his people that he was serious and wanted the things. But that is tangential to the point that Trump does not feel himself bound by the Constitution and will in fact be a direct force for evil in a way that Biden is not acting as a force for good.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I am not planning to vote for Biden because the electoral college means my vote is purely performative in any case

Remember how I convinced you last time. And it's even more important this time. If D vote totals drop in solid blue states, Trump will, in the case of any purple states Biden narrowly wins, point to that and say, "If even DC came out by 284,000 rather than 317,000 (say) then how can this result in Pennsylvania possibly be correct?" You'll be making it easier on him to do his cast-doubt-on-the-election-results thing. May not prevail with you this time round, but I gotta try.

 

[Lexicus]

Remember how I convinced you last time. And it's even more important this time. If D vote totals drop in solid blue states, Trump will, in the case of any purple states Biden narrowly wins, point to that and say, "If even DC came out by 284,000 rather than 317,000 (say) then how can this result in Pennsylvania possibly be correct?" You'll be making it easier on him to do his cast-doubt-on-the-election-results thing. May not prevail with you this time round, but I gotta try.

If you want me to vote for Biden, your best bet is lobbying Biden to declare war on Israel and file federal charges against GOP officials who have committed crimes against humanity on trans people.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Trump will do better on both those issues, I guess.

Remember you're talking to a man who watched Little House on the Prairie.

 

[Lexicus]

Trump will do better on both those issues, I guess.

As I noted in my post, and as I thought you understood, I do not see my vote for Biden as making any possible difference to the outcome of the election.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I tried to show you a way it might.

 

[Lexicus]

I tried to show you a way it might.

I am not remotely convinced.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Well, that's why I added my last sentence:

May not prevail with you this time round, but I gotta try.

You know I'll keep trying, right up to the day. I won't pester you, but I'll watch for chances.

 

[Core Imposter]

My wife watches Little House all the time. I watch with her a few minutes when I can.

Reading through this stuff, one main reason that Trump was elected is that he promised to actually do things and we all knew he didn't know that politicians try their best not to "solve" issues. Which is because they need the issues to fund raise and run on next time. Trump was an amateur. So, when he promised conservative judges and produced a list, we took a chance.

And he delivered (on that promise at least). So, we voted for him again because when will we ever again get a chance to vote for a politician that actually delivers?

Now, at this point, he isn't promising anything I particularly trust him to do. So, I might vote for Kennedy or someone else.