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Ansem

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1 minute ago, Hylian Air Force said:

I wouldn't hinge on McConnell, but as Meat Loaf said, two outta three ain't bad.

I dunno. His behavior during the debate with Amy McGrath may have cost him a lot of worth with voters, not to mention his behavior throughout this administration. Laughing in the face of thousands of deaths though was...absolutely disturbing.

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10 minutes ago, Dai said:

I dunno. His behavior during the debate with Amy McGrath may have cost him a lot of worth with voters, not to mention his behavior throughout this administration. Laughing in the face of thousands of deaths though was...absolutely disturbing.

I live literally next door to Kentucky. There's no way, even with gaffes, he's gonna even win by less than 10 points.

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24 minutes ago, Dai said:

I dunno. His behavior during the debate with Amy McGrath may have cost him a lot of worth with voters, not to mention his behavior throughout this administration. Laughing in the face of thousands of deaths though was...absolutely disturbing.

Clips or articles?

I think McConnell can abort a fetus during a debate and win Kentucky.

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1 hour ago, Hylian Air Force said:

I live literally next door to Kentucky. There's no way, even with gaffes, he's gonna even win by less than 10 points.

The only thing that gives me hope is that Mitch is the most unpopular senator in the US, and he has the lowest approval rating amongst senators in their home state.

Literally the only reason he gets elected is because he's a republican in a red state. But considering how vulnerable Lindsey is, it's not a given.

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1 hour ago, Dai said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/14/mitch-mcconnell-is-laughing-all-us/

I'll at least settle for him not being Senate Majority Leader.

Fucking ghoul.

Quote

Literally the only reason he gets elected is because he's a republican in a red state. But considering how vulnerable Lindsey is, it's not a given.

Unfortunately SC's been trending much faster than KY. if you go from VA down to GA, it's a literal spectrum that's shifting bluer and bluer. GA and SC are in play for president and SC is in play for the senate. KY is divorced from that but it might seep in, however I would wager KY would vote closer to Ohio or Alabama than along the southern coast states.

I could just be making that up, but my reasoning is pretty much that the country gets redder the further you are from the coast, and the coast is shifting so it'll take a bit for it to move inwards.

Edited by Lord Raven
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3 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

Unfortunately SC's been trending much faster than KY. if you go from VA down to GA, it's a literal spectrum that's shifting bluer and bluer. GA and SC are in play for president and SC is in play for the senate. KY is divorced from that but it might seep in, however I would wager KY would vote closer to Ohio or Alabama than along the southern coast states.

I could just be making that up, but my reasoning is pretty much the whole "gets redder the further you are from the coast, and the coast is shifting so it'll take a bit for it to move inwards."

^ This is the reason why I have very little faith in Tennessee electing any Democrat to senator, governor, or president for the foreseeable future.

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12 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

Fucking ghoul.

I think my favorite comparison is to Sheev Palpatine. Although, the Emperor was at least enjoyably evil. Mitch is just...gross.

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On 10/16/2020 at 6:21 PM, Slumber said:

At that point, that would be the only justice.

Exactly.

What's wrong with Kentucky?  Disgusting.  

The red mirage, you better believe Fox and conservative media outlets will declare Trump the winner prematurely and support Trump stopping counting of mail in votes.  So what do the Democrats do then?  Is this time for left wing militias and force?  A stealing of an election can't be tolerated.  

Also WTF is up with mail in voting?  Many states don't start counting til election day, and are super strict on anything mismarked or if the signature doesn't perfectly match. Democrats do you want to live in a Trump hellscape for 4 more years?  Republicans are voting in person, all Democrats besides those that absolutely can not cause of military or health reasons should do the same.  The risk of Covid is fucking worth it.  I can see scummy red states and swing states with Republican controlled legislatures throwing out tons of mail in votes, oh and maybe just selecting their own electors.

Also Fox, GOP senators just laughing off what Trump says.  They should be tried for treason.  

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31 minutes ago, Dai said:

I think my favorite comparison is to Sheev Palpatine. Although, the Emperor was at least enjoyably evil. Mitch is just...gross.

Emperor Palpatine had a goal and a vision.

If the lady who wrote McConnell's biography is a credible source of his character, there's nothing to McConnell.

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3 hours ago, Dai said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/14/mitch-mcconnell-is-laughing-all-us/

I'll at least settle for him not being Senate Majority Leader.

That's the kind of laugh you'd hear from a horror movie villain. Even then, it sounds more like a chuckle. Anyway, that's a lil' scary.

Also, considering the context, it's not something that anyone should be chuckling about.

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1 hour ago, Slumber said:

Emperor Palpatine had a goal and a vision.

If the lady who wrote McConnell's biography is a credible source of his character, there's nothing to McConnell.

power is a goal and vision unto itself

His vision is solely for himself. Not for public service.

Edited by Lord Raven
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On 10/18/2020 at 9:20 PM, Lewyn said:

What's wrong with Kentucky? 

So here's everything you need to know about Republican politics in 2020. (and I say this as a former Republican who voted for McCain and Romney)

The modern Republican Party (i.e. the Republican Party of the past ~40 years)  is a party that down-the-line favors the interests of big business over the interests of the working class.

...against higher tax brackets for high wealth
...against living wages for menial labor and retail/service workers 
...against funding public programs for affordable access to healthcare, housing and education
...pro stripping back consumer protection and fair labor laws (i.e. 'deregulation')

However, the modern Republican Party is still a party that depends on the support of working class voters to assemble governing majorities.

To do this, they have cultivated an identity politics driven, undereducated base of White/Christian grievance-voters.

...Racially motivated by backlash against the Civil Rights Movement + hostility towards foreigners and immigration
...Religiously motivated by backlash against the women's movement, abortion, and gay rights.  

And the more their policies leave their working class voters struggling to get by on poverty-wages while everything gets more expensive and the rich get richer.

The more they have to tap into that white nationalist, religious fundamentalist rhetoric and appeal to the ugliest impulses of their working class base to keep them thinking that Republicans are working for them; not against them.  
_____

You look at the States where that works and where that still plays well.  And they have some common characteristics:

1)   They rank low in education.
2)   They rank high in religiosity.
3)   They're almost entirely white, and have little in the way of growing black or Hispanic populations.  

Kentucky and Tennessee are 3-for-3. 

Key Difference between Kentucky/Tennessee: and Georgia/South Carolina. 

Kentucky is 91% white.  
Tennessee is 82% white. 

Their identity politick voters break overwhelmingly Republican on social ideology, and there isn't enough non-white voters breaking the other way to make up the difference. 

South Carolina is 68.5% white.
Georgia is 70% white

...and those make for much more competitive numbers,  when you start data-crunching voter preference... 

 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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9 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

So here's everything you need to know about Republican politics in 2020. (and I say this as a former Republican who voted for McCain and Romney)

The modern Republican Party (i.e. the Republican Party of the past ~40 years)  is a party that down-the-line favors the interests of big business over the interests of the working class.

...against higher tax brackets for high wealth
...against living wages for menial labor and retail/service workers 
...against funding public programs for affordable access to healthcare, housing and education
...pro stripping back consumer protection and fair labor laws (i.e. 'deregulation')

However, the modern Republican Party is still a party that depends on the support of working class voters to assemble governing majorities.

To do this, they have cultivated an identity politics driven, undereducated base of White/Christian grievance-voters.

...Racially motivated by backlash against the Civil Rights Movement + hostility towards foreigners and immigration
...Religiously motivated by backlash against the women's movement, abortion, and gay rights.  

And the more their policies leave their working class voters struggling to get by on poverty-wages while everything gets more expensive and the rich get richer.

The more they have to tap into that white nationalist, religious fundamentalist rhetoric and appeal to the ugliest impulses of their working class base to keep them thinking that Republicans are working for them; not against them.  
_____

You look at the States where that works and where that still plays well.  And they have some common characteristics:

1)   They rank low in education.
2)   They rank high in religiosity.
3)   They're almost entirely white, and have little in the way of growing black or Hispanic populations.  

Kentucky and Tennessee are 3-for-3. 

Key Difference between Kentucky/Tennessee: and Georgia/South Carolina. 

Kentucky is 91% white.  
Tennessee is 82% white. 

Their identity politick voters break overwhelmingly Republican on social ideology, and there isn't enough non-white voters breaking the other way to make up the difference. 

South Carolina is 68.5% white.
Georgia is 70% white

...and those make for much more competitive numbers,  when you start date-crunching voter preference... 

 

Excellent explanation, and having a 6-3 supermajority conservative pro corporation, anti consumer/anti worker Supreme Court is going to help achieve their goals tremendously.  There has been massive funding for federalist society and pushing these ultra conservative, pro business judges by Koch brothers and others.  Sure they dangle banning abortion and getting rid of gay marriage and other things to fire up Republican base support but that isn't their real goal.  Their real goal is to strip away: worker protections, union rights, safety protocols, minimum wage requirements, overtime pay requirements, environmental laws, discrimination protections in hiring, consumer and worker ability to challenge/punish them in courts.  All to increase wealth of shareholders at the expense of workers and consumers.  It is disgustingly evil and not talked about enough.  Why Democrats didn't bring this up more I don't know.

I'm wondering, and this isn't something to be discussed lightly, maybe blue states should just secede and form their own country.  How much longer are they going to abide by the tyranny of minority rule and a president who repeatedly tries to and threatens to cut federal funding to states that didn't support him?  Tries to turn his supporters against Democrat governors and mayors, leading some to attempt kidnapping and public execution (like Whitmer)?  Blue states pay the lion's share of federal taxes, and receive less federal aid, and get treated like shit by the current President and his party.  

I'd love to see the blue states form their own country, red states form their own country, purple states either split to either one or form their own country.  See which country turns out to be the best in 30 or so years.  

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43 minutes ago, Lewyn said:

I'm wondering, and this isn't something to be discussed lightly, maybe blue states should just secede and form their own country. 

If you can construct a way in which New York and California can be one country without including Idaho, Texas and Utah, then by all means let me know. It just becomes a weird Pakistan vs East Pakistan/Bangladesh with Kashmir in the middle. And nobody wants that.

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7 hours ago, Lewyn said:

I'd love to see the blue states form their own country, red states form their own country, purple states either split to either one or form their own country.  See which country turns out to be the best in 30 or so years.

Makes me wonder if the US would be better of with all states being separate countries, tied together to something similar to the European Union. Not saying the EU is a perfect system, but from my point of view it seems a lot better than the US system.

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Red states would probably inch closer to poverty and anarchy because their governments will need to increase taxes to increase public funding they'll have lost from blue states subsidizing them but as we've already seen, the GOP loves dealing in the "Rich get Richer" so the working class will continue to get fucked. White nationalist militias from those states would probably look to invade nearby blue states to "reclaim what those lazy black and browns have taken from us".

Blue states would have more money in terms of public funding but there may be struggles when it comes to food.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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5 hours ago, whase said:

Makes me wonder if the US would be better of with all states being separate countries, tied together to something similar to the European Union. 

That was basically the idea behind the Articles of Confederation (i.e. the thing we tried for 11 years from 1776 to 1787, before we drafted The Constitution)

The problem was that with the American ethos being as individualistic as it is; there was just way too much bickering between The States without some form of central authority over them to make them cooperate and work together. 

Left to function as their own mini "countries" with their own trade deals and militias and foreign policies; there was too much differences between them and divisions ran too deep for them to ever truly function as a unified entity.    

It didn't work then, and I don't think it would work any better now. 
 

13 hours ago, Lewyn said:

I'd love to see the blue states form their own country, red states form their own country, purple states either split to either one or form their own country.  See which country turns out to be the best in 30 or so years.  

Lets be entirely realistic about what that would entail.

You're talking about a second Civil War. 
 

13 hours ago, Lewyn said:

How much longer are they going to abide by the tyranny of minority rule and a president who repeatedly tries to and threatens to cut federal funding to states that didn't support him?  Tries to turn his supporters against Democrat governors and mayors, leading some to attempt kidnapping and public execution (like Whitmer)?  Blue states pay the lion's share of federal taxes, and receive less federal aid, and get treated like shit by the current President and his party.  


...I mean what if instead of sending the national guard down South to enforce Brown v. Board of Education and desegregate the public schools we had just said:

Okay. Fuck it. If they wanna be like that, let them break away from the United States again and have their own little White Nationalist ethnotstate. Thats their problem. We can be a free country without them, and just not entertain those problems or deal with any of that nonsense.
_____

The goal has to be to fix the broken parts of the country. Not partition it. 

And lets not put rose-colored-glasses on about living conditions in the blue states either.

Yeah...we have better antidiscrimination laws and higher wages...

We also have more expensive housing, higher rents and tuitions and utility bills, and the same (if not worse) problems in the cities with masses of working class persons struggling to get by on poverty wages while everything gets more expensive, and fewer and fewer people control more and more wealth.

Thats a universal fix thats needed. 

Not a problem that goes away from chopping the country up into smaller countries. 

 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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11 hours ago, whase said:

Makes me wonder if the US would be better of with all states being separate countries, tied together to something similar to the European Union. Not saying the EU is a perfect system, but from my point of view it seems a lot better than the US system.

You do realize that this can really hurt a lot of things, right? Like the shipping industry, traveling, education, the cessation of federal welfare, the benefits of having federal law enforcement relieving the workload every now and then.

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https://www.prri.org/research/amid-multiple-crises-trump-and-biden-supporters-see-different-realities-and-futures-for-the-nation/

Some interesting numbers here. A highlight includes support for the question 'It always makes our country better when Americans speak up and protest unfair treatment by the government' being cut in half in the minds of Republicans when Black Americans is said instead.

6 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Lets be entirely realistic about what that would entail.

You're talking about a second Civil War.

Some folks seem to be raring for it more than ever.

Edited by Tryhard
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1 hour ago, Tryhard said:

https://www.prri.org/research/amid-multiple-crises-trump-and-biden-supporters-see-different-realities-and-futures-for-the-nation/

Some interesting numbers here. A highlight includes support for the question 'It always makes our country better when Americans speak up and protest unfair treatment by the government' being cut in half in the minds of Republicans when Black Americans is said instead.

That's by design. As Shob already said, part of the Republican base is "...Racially motivated by backlash against the Civil Rights Movement + hostility towards foreigners and immigration" which is basically what the Southern Strategy is about: tapping into that racism and make it part of their support. The GOP knows they are too entrenched in that and it's making them less popular as a result which is why they're trying so hard to make it easier to vote.

1 hour ago, Tryhard said:

Some folks seem to be raring for it more than ever.

Folks with military experience are constantly sought after by white nationalists groups. They're super thirsty for a second civil war because in their eyes, it is them and the conservatives who have the guns while the liberals have nothing and they would probably jump the gun the moment a story breaks out like George Floyd's but with the victim being a white man and the cops being black.

  

7 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

And lets not put rose-colored-glasses on about living conditions in the blue states either.

Yeah...we have better antidiscrimination laws and higher wages...

We also have more expensive housing, higher rents and tuitions and utility bills, and the same (if not worse) problems in the cities with masses of working class persons struggling to get by on poverty wages while everything gets more expensive, and fewer and fewer people control more and more wealth.

Thats a universal fix thats needed. 
 

To be fair, it is in large part due to the GOP that those issues aren't being addressed at all at the federal level. While I don't agree with splitting the US into smaller countries, there are certain things that would pass sooner if the GOP were out of the equation.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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Not a fan of secession either. It will greatly diminish our international standing and severely jeopardize our national security. Whether blue states secede or kick Trump states out, letting racists roam free and unsupervised is just asking for a second Cuban Missile Crisis to happen.

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