US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[Rockstar]

Welcome to Thunderdome Sailor Steve!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by August

I Now I understand why the Democrats would ignore this seeing as it goes against their Republicans are Evil narrative but a self described neutral independent like yourself? You must have just missed it amid all the political noise I guess.

I did miss it. My apologies.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I did miss it. My apologies.

Well you did good on the other stuff over in post #319 ...

Thank you

You grow when you know

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Welcome to Thunderdome Sailor Steve!

TWO PARTIES ENTER, ONE PARTY LEAVES

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Oberon

TWO PARTIES ENTER, ONE PARTY LEAVES

While the two are fighting, maybe i'm allowed to take Mrs Turner out for dinner

[eddie]

"Scottish newspaper Sunday Herald shot into the limelight yesterday when its TV preview of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration went viral."


“After a long absence, The Twilight Zone returns with one of the most ambitious, expensive and controversial productions in broadcast history. Sci-fi writers have dabbled often with alternative history stories - among the most common is the ‘What If The Nazis Had Won The Second World War’ setting - but this huge interactive virtual reality project, which will unfold on TV, in the press, and on Twitter over the next four years, sets out to build an ongoing alternative present. The story begins in a nightmarish version of 2017 in which huge sections of the US electorate have somehow been duped into voting to make Donald Trump president. It sounds far-fetched, and it is is, but as it goes on it becomes more and more chillingly plausible. Today's feature-length opener concentrates on the gaudy inauguration of President Trump, and the stirrings of protest and despair surrounding the ceremony, while pundits speculate gravely on what lies ahead. It's a flawed piece, but a disturbing glimpse of the horrors we could stumble into, if we’re not careful.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...-a7528991.html

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I did miss it. My apologies.

It could be there is a confusion about the Trump stance on Duke and the KKK. I did recall Trump did disavow Duke and the KKK, but I never gave it much attention: Trump had to disavow them or commit political suicide; there was no other choice if he wished to remain a viable candidate. What had struck me is the reference in a previous post stating Trump had repeatedly made disavowals prior to the last one. I looked it up and found this:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/poli...e63492082.html

So, Trump, indeed, has repeatedly disavowed Duke and the KKK; but the article itself had a link to a FactCheck.org article:

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/03/tru...-duke-amnesia/

These two articles may explain the confusion: it appears the famous Trump affliction of conveniently "selective memory", seen so often in his life, is being conflated with his disavowals. People seem to have taken his claims of knowing nothing about David Duke at all with an alleged refusal to disavow Duke. Trump did and has disavowed Duke and the KKK: that is very true. Trump has claimed no previous knowledge of Duke: that is false. As FactCheck.org sometimes refers to these sorts of situations, it is a case of "True, but..."...



<O>

[Platapus]

To many people the Democrats and Republicans are cleanly split between liberal and conservatives. In a lot of opinions, the terms are almost interchangeable. But that is not how it was in the past. The problem is trying to characterize a political party in just a few sound bytes.

Up until the 1940's both the Democrats and the Republicans had their conservative and liberal members. They worked to keep each party balanced. It was possible for an election to be between a conservative Democrat and a liberal Republican. As the years went, so did the balance of the party alternate.

In the 1940's there was a serious split in the Democratic party. The conservative Democrats felt that FDR was too liberal and there was much harrumphing. So much harrumphing that FDR decided to push for a conservative running made in Truman in an attempt to keep the conservative Democrats in the party and voting for the Democratic candidates. By the late 1940's, however damage was already done and the more conservative Democrats started moving toward Republican and to a much small extent liberal Republicans were moving to the Democrats.

However, the Republican party still maintained a balance of liberal and conservatives with the number of conservatives growing (to some extent by conservative democrats). In the 1970's and 1980's there was a split in the Republican party. Senior members of the GOP decided to push for a more conservative membership and they slowly succeeded. Many liberal Republicans left for the now liberal Democratic party.

Strategically, I feel this was a mistake. I think the parties would be much more effective and be more representative if the parties maintained their liberal and conservative membership.

The problem with focusing on one or the other is that they tend to move to the extremes. Who are the conservative Democrats who can help pull the party to the middle? Who are the liberal Republicans who can help pull the party to the middle?

They don't exist, or more accurately don't exist in numbers and political power to affect any balancing changes.

Unfortunately, this results in a split not only between Democrats and Republicans but respectively between conservatives and liberals. This does not bode well for cooperation

The double whammy of linking the parties with the ideology emphasize the "Us against Them" attitude which in my opinion will ultimately destroy this country alike a cancer.

I have often thought that the first party to move to the center could dominate the elections. It is important to recognize that

- Liberals love this country and only want the best for the country
- Conservatives love this country and only want the best for the country
- Democrats love this country and only want the best for the country
- Republicans love this country and only want the best for the country

The only differences are in each of their priorities and their methodologies. Believing in one does not make the other wrong... just different.

As an Independent I love this country and only want the best for the country. But I fear that the ideological divide that we have in this country will only get worse.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I did miss it. My apologies.

Nothing to apologize for Steve. The media has done everything they can to make people forget that it ever happened.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Platapus

But I fear that the ideological divide that we have in this country will only get worse.

That is a beautiful piece, and you'll forgive me for not quoting all of it, but I want to also echo this particular sentence. I think the divide has only accelerated since the financial crash of 2008, and I think is fairly typical of what happens in societies in times of great uncertainty and potential conflict, people tend to see the middle ground as not working and so head out into the fringes where there be dragons (or at the very least, dictators).
This is not just an American problem, it's happening all over the western world at the moment, and quite possibly elsewhere too but I can't say I've noticed it, perhaps it is because the western world is more susceptible to the economic damage caused by the 2008 crisis and the turbulence which followed.
Potentially you could put the tipping point earlier, perhaps in the aftermaths of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, certainly these were the death knell for New Labour and Tony Blair, neither of which has really recovered from the double-punch of the wars and then the financial crisis (Although Blairs successor Gordon Brown picks up most of the flak for the crisis, being both chancellor during the Blair years and then PM when it all fell down).
If you go back to the 1920s you see a lot of unrest in the aftermath of the First World War, Germany nearly fell into civil war, and Britain flirted dangerously with disaster, with at one point even the Royal Navy mutinying. It was around this point that the 'Red Scare' really started up again, and as a push back against that, you can argue that fascism started and fed from that fear as people went away from the middle ground and towards the fringes, and that in itself created a feedback loop as some people went to the opposite fringe because of a rise in the other.
It's worrying, "A House divided on itself cannot stand" as Abe put it, and we're all in a divided house at the moment, I don't think it's been quite this divided since post-WWI.

[vienna]

One aspect of the whole DEM vs GOP, Far Left vs Far Right, etc., that has not been mentioned is the significant rise in Independent voters. I'm not talking about the fringe independents like the Greens and Libertarians and such, I mean fully Independent voters who are increasingly opting out of and party affiliations. As the younger voters come on to the voter rolls, they have been eschewing all political parties and even some of the older voters, like myself, who have become fed up with the inane "our way or the highway" mindset of the current political climate. In California, voters registering as Independent are now the second largest group, behind the DEMs and ahead of the GOP; in fact, both of the traditionally "main" parties in CA have been hemorrhaging voter roll "members" with the GOP losing voters at a rate twice that of the DEMs, and, at the present pace, in the very near future, Independents stand to become the largest registered voter group in CA. Perhaps the Independents have absorbed a great deal of the disaffected former 'liberal GOP' and 'conservative DEMs' looking for a more sensible, 'middle-of-the-road' approach where candidates and issues are evaluated for their merits and not their adherence to petty party dogma. Imagine that: politics for people who can think for themselves and make up their own minds free of outside expectations. You know, it even sounds like, oh, I don't know...like maybe...

...freedom?...

"Our way or the highway"? Guess we'll take the freeway and leave the rest in the dust...



<O>

[Catfish]

Some excellent posts And thanks again, Platapus.

^ Vienna i wish people would elect other people only by what they promise and their beforehand published plans what they intend to do. And instantly thrown out when deviating from course.
But even then we will have people for or against abortion, religion, envy, hate and so on.

But e.g. looking at Facebook i see so much nonsense and hate and foolishness that i fear a democratic election based on facts with people having common sense and at least a tiny bit of empathy towards their brethren, will never happen with the current systems, and mindset.
I see this new power constellation from Putin to Trump to LePen, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, England's Brexit and still wonder how this happened. The future cannot depend on single nations each with their own Extrawurst trying to strangle or dominate their neighbours or the world; but if it continues or even falls back as it happened now, it will destroy mankind sooner or later. And if we don't get out of this i think we deserve no better.

[ikalugin]

- Liberals love this country and only want the best for the country
- Conservatives love this country and only want the best for the country
- Democrats love this country and only want the best for the country
- Republicans love this country and only want the best for the country

I don't know how it works in US, but in Russia some parties and movements seem to be openly unpatriotic/anti-russian.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Some excellent posts And thanks again, Platapus.

^ Vienna i wish people would elect other people only by what they promise and their beforehand published plans what they intend to do. And instantly thrown out when deviating from course.
But even then we will have people for or against abortion, religion, envy, hate and so on.

But e.g. looking at Facebook i see so much nonsense and hate and foolishness that i fear a democratic election based on facts with people having common sense and at least a tiny bit of empathy towards their brethren, will never happen with the current systems, and mindset.
I see this new power constellation from Putin to Trump to LePen, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, England's Brexit and still wonder how this happened. The future cannot depend on single nations each with their own Extrawurst trying to strangle or dominate their neighbours or the world; but if it continues or even falls back as it happened now, it will destroy mankind sooner or later. And if we don't get out of this i think we deserve no better.

Oh, I do agree there will always be pro and con on any issue; that is very much a given. What is repugnant is the blind adherence to a party's candidate or issues solely because a person "belongs" to a particular party. How many times have we seen, just in these forums, and elsewhere, the expression of sentiments along the lines of and such as 'well, I don't agree with [insert candidate or issue here], but I am a loyal member of my party, so, I'm gonna vote for them/it, anyway'? Now, more than ever, the blacks and whites of issues and candidates, take greater shades of greys. The absolutist lines of party politics are blurred. As Platapus pointed out [aside: no, really, seriously - Platapus for President], there used to Liberal Republicans (Nelson Rockefeller was a favorite of mine) and there used to be Conservative Democrats (e.g., Truman); and there used to be Moderates in both the major parties , or as they were sometimes called, the Middle-Of-The-Roaders. There may not be a lot of self-acknowledged Middle-Of-The-Roaders around anymore, but there is a growing number of self-acknowledged Independents...

I noted in a previous post the curious case of Orange County in California, a long-time highly conservative, very GOP stronghold in the state: for the first time since 1936, a period of 80 years, the county gave the Presidential win to a Democratic candidate, Clinton. At first, I thought well, maybe Clinton won because there was a low voter turnout: the final turnout in Orange was a whopping 80.7%, impressive, given the national turnout total was about 55%. I then checked the registration percentages before the election by party: 41.8% GOP; 31.7% DEM; the rest 26.5% either other parties or Independents, so the GOP still held the lead in registrations. Then I looked at the actual percentage totals for the candidates: 50.9% Clinton; 42.3% Trump; 6.8% other candidates/parties. What is amazing is Trump only managed to get .5% more votes than the total of registered GOP voters. Safely assuming not every single GOP voter cast a ballot for Trump, what this means is not only did Trump lose GOP votes, he also failed to sway any sizable number of Independents; and that's were the crux lies: in Orange, the importance of the Independents, comprising about a quarter of the registered voters, has now become more key to the fates of both the major parties than each parties own membership. Given that nationwide both the major parties have been steadily losing registered voters, not to each others parties, but to the growing number of independents and alternate parties, the overall influence of the majors on the electorate seems to waning. Maybe what were seeing is the emergence of a new, non-party specific middle of the road...

Originally Posted by ikalugin

I don't know how it works in US, but in Russia some parties and movements seem to be openly unpatriotic/anti-russian.

Openly unpatriotic to who: the USA or Russia? If your worry is about Russia, no fears: Vlad's boyfriend takes over on Friday...


<O>

[ikalugin]

Russian parties and political movements being openly unpatriotic towards Russia (as a country). While there are differnt ways this happens, with ethnic nationalists (who want to separate), islamists (they want a global Khaliphate and fight for ISIS) and hard line communists (who want a global revolution) being the obvious offenders, the worst offenders are actually "liberals". You can read an old interview by one such liberal here:
http://www.compromat.ru/page_25887.htm
And it is fairly representative of them on the whole.