US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[August]

Here's an interesting article. They claim that if the Democrats loose they will encourage states to secede.

President Donald Trump cannot delay the election, even if he wants to. The very fact he tweeted about that idea is concerning. But a recent attempt to “game” the various possible scenarios of the 2020 presidential election should concern Americans even more. During a strategy session, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman, John Podesta, suggested that if Joe Biden loses in a similar way that Clinton did in 2016, Biden will cry foul, alleging voter suppression. He will pull the strings to keep Trump from getting inaugurated a second time, and his team will pressure Western states to secede if Trump takes office again.

https://pjmedia.com/election/tyler-o...n-2016-n744837

[mapuc]

^ Reading things like this, scares me.

Even though I'm not an American the political development in USA scares me.

You have a sitting President who will Yell Vote fraud if he loose and will refuse to leave the White House if this happens.
(I have the feeling - He are convinced the entire American people loves him)

Then you have the Dem and Joe Biden, who will refuse anything than a win.

Looks like you may end up in a political vacuum-Where no one will take place in the White House after Jan 20 2021.
(Or will there under any circumstances be a President after this date ?)

Markus

[August]

Heres some more interesting reading:

Biden: Transition to What?

COMMENTARY

By Steve Cortes

By his own admission, Joe Biden concedes he is merely a placeholder, telling a fundraising audience in May: “I view myself as a transition candidate.” This “transition” increasingly means a statist agenda that empowers a political rodeo of radical officeholders, reverses our country back toward globalism, and encourages street-level chaos across our land.
In any administration, personnel choices often compel policy. In the case of Biden, his woke orbit is dominated by agitators. The presumptive nominee’s “Unity Task Force” recommendations -- compiled with the input of prominent progressives -- read like a wish list from the faculty lounges of Ivy League schools in consultation with the University of California system. The manifesto calls for suspending all deportations of illegal migrants and the effective crippling of the American energy industry.

These are not your parents’ Democrats. In fact, the effective “kitchen cabinet” of Biden’s advisers would have been ostracized by the party as recently as a decade or two ago. For example, Biden promises to place Robert Francis O’Rourke as the effective gun czar of a Biden administration. O’Rourke threatens to confiscate millions of firearms from lawful gun owners, including forcible seizures of the most popular rifle in America. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a member of the so-called “Squad” of most progressive House members, openly gloated recently about how far left she moved Biden’s platform. This radicalism extends to potential vice presidential candidates as well. For example, two Californians reportedly on the shortlist of applicants include Sen. Kamala Harris, who affirms taxpayer-funded health care for illegal migrants, and Rep. Karen Bass, who has lavishly praised the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

But while Biden points to a progressive future of extremists, he also portends a regression backward toward the globalism that was the hallmark of his half-century in the Washington swamp. Biden personifies the D.C. foreign policy establishment, which clamors for the return of a globalist commander-in-chief. Biden has supported countless calamitous international armed interventions. In contrast, President Trump fulfills his campaign promises and pursues an America First foreign policy of realism and restraint.
As Biden repeatedly sent our warfighters abroad, he also sent our jobs overseas, and mostly to China. When vice president, Biden actually asserted in a 2011 speech that “a rising China is a positive, positive development, not only for China, but for America.” As Biden uttered that Pollyanna nonsense to his Davos-oriented CEO fanboys, industrial heartland America endured devastation. Specifically, our nation lost 3.2 million jobs to China over a 12-year period from the time Biden proposed Beijing’s inclusion as a most-favored trading member of the WTO in 2001, per analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.

Biden’s domestic “transition” sadly points to a place of lawless disorder. As chaos spread across Democratic-led cities, Joe Biden remained ensconced and mostly silent in his Delaware home. He has repeatedly equivocated regarding violent rioters, referring to them at one point as “peaceful protesters.” The police departments of America clearly disagree, which explains why the National Association of Police Organizations, which represents over 240,000 officers nationwide, enthusiastically endorsed President Trump for reelection. (That same group had endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket in 2008 and 2012.) In addition, more than 100 police agencies have refused to bolster Milwaukee Police Department security efforts at the upcoming Democratic National Convention because they are understandably concerned with officers’ safety after that city ordered restrictions on tear gas and other crowd control measures.

As the greatest republic in world history, we clearly deserve far better than all this. We will not settle for acquiescence. We will choose the 2020 candidate ready to reject radicalism, embrace sovereignty, and enforce the rule of law – because this much we know: Your way of life would not be safe in Joe Biden’s radicalized America.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...at_143860.html

[Hawk66]

What does one expect from a Trump campaign manager ?

This "we have lost xyz jobs to xyz" is just nonsense. We had the same discussion here in Germany 1-2 decades ago.

What does one expect ? That China/India stays for ever poor, we buy raw materials from them and pay some development assistance to them for ever ?

I more than puzzled that some conservatives in the US have forgotten how free markets work, how trade between two countries make both rich, which is described in "The Wealth of Nations" of Adam Smith.

The current issue in the US and elsewhere is that the society does not adapt. Work comes and go - you have to adapt..you have to educate your current and future workforce to new things. I guess I refered the MIT book "The second machine age" couple of times. The strength of the US in the past was that it was capable to quickly adapt to a new environment. This seems to be lost. Corona is another "proof" for this.

Going back like Trumps agenda has never worked in history and btw is going back the spirit of the DNA in your country ?

I do not claim that Biden is (much) better here...which worries me even more...

[Catfish]

@Marcus: both sides will have to accept the outcome of the election, and they will. It is all threatening the "enemy" and ape-like behaviour. Mud-slinging. Posing.

But i understand it much better now:
"How the Right Wing Convinces Itself That Liberals Are Evil.
Since the 1950s, the conservative movement has justified bad behavior—including supporting Donald Trump—by persuading itself that the left is worse."

How the Right Wing Convinces Itself That Liberals Are Evil

Good article b.t.w.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The system of electoral college simply is an artificial weighing of counted votes that derails the real weight of the counted votes. And that is a problem. Thats why I insist on the "real" eleciton results. You may have noticed that I gave these "real" results for german state elections in the past, too. Only them shows what really has gone on.

Sorry but again you don't seem to grasp how the American system works. The President does not wield unlimited power. He is restrained by Congress and the Judicial system. The President cannot introduce and pass laws. Congress does that and it is elected, both Senators and House Reps. by popular vote. The people can decide if they want to check the President's power and they do quite regularly. Most mid term elections go against the White House.

By real results I assume that you mean the popular vote. That may work in some countries but in the USA that would mean a permanent Democratic White House. Would that be good for the country as a whole? I doubt it. In my life time Presidents usually get two terms and then the other party takes over. The only variation from that was Carter and Bush Sr. The people who complain the most are usually the people who didn't win. Hillary Clinton and her supporters and the Trump haters.

Real tyranny would be a country ruled by one political party.

[Catfish]

What ?

"Donald Trump: US Treasury should get cut of TikTok deal"
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53633315

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by u crank

Sorry but again you don't seem to grasp how the American system works. The President does not wield unlimited power. He is restrained by Congress and the Judicial system. The President cannot introduce and pass laws. Congress does that and it is elected, both Senators and House Reps. by popular vote. The people can decide if they want to check the President's power and they do quite regularly. Most mid term elections go against the White House.

By real results I assume that you mean the popular vote. That may work in some countries but in the USA that would mean a permanent Democratic White House. Would that be good for the country as a whole? I doubt it. In my life time Presidents usually get two terms and then the other party takes over. The only variation from that was Carter and Bush Sr. The people who complain the most are usually the people who didn't win. Hillary Clinton and her supporters and the Trump haters.

Please. Beleiuve me, I understand the design of the system, I am just not as beleiving that ti works as the foundign father sintended as you seem to be. I do not trust ins oemthign njust becasue it is wqritten, and rules can be avoided anyway, can be exploited, widened, bend, up to the point where oyu comamnd things witho9ut giving a verbal ciommnand you could be held repso9nsible for, and so forth.


We have a phrase in German: "paper is patient".

Real tyranny would be a country ruled by one political party.

Thjat is just one example of tyranny. The anient Greek not for no reaosn difefrentiated between three base forms of it. And massive industry lobbying, deep stgate and industrial miliuaty compexes they did not even imagine.



One advice. Don't believe so easily just because it is written. Trump has broken several rules - and got away with it because the system was never prepared for somebody like him appearing, and the other party was too dumb. the checks and balances faile din preventing ther worst case turning real and maximising damage. For keeping in check threats like Trumpian figures and their malicious ways, the system is unfit, and was never designed for. Its designers could not imagine that a scenario like today could ever turn real. It was unimaginable for them. And I think the same I would need to say after three years of the radical left of the Democrats dominating the WH.



I have often said over the past twenty years that I see the US two ways: by the idealistic claim of what it wanted to be (great sympoathy from me), once; and by the reality that it is today (no sympathy from me). Both are worlds apart. The ideal cannot live up to the reality.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Please. Beleiuve me, I understand the design of the system, I am just not as beleiving that ti works as the foundign father sintended as you seem to be.

Actually it works exactly as the founding fathers intended. The popuation and political leanings in America are not a secret. Large and very populated coastal regions in America are deep blue and have been for a while. If the Senate seats were allotted proportionally and the President was elected by popular vote Democrats and the left would realize their dream of permanent control of Washington. The current system of two Senate seats for each state and the Electoral College system prevents that. I'm not going to explain it further. If you don't understand it or you don't agree with it so be it.

One advice. Don't believe so easily just because it is written. Trump has broken several rules - and got away with it because the system was never prepared for somebody like him appearing, and the other party was too dumb.

Please be specific. What rules?

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Catfish

But i understand it much better now:
"How the Right Wing Convinces Itself That Liberals Are Evil.
Since the 1950s, the conservative movement has justified bad behavior—including supporting Donald Trump—by persuading itself that the left is worse."

How the Right Wing Convinces Itself That Liberals Are Evil

Good article b.t.w.

For your reading pleasure.

The Woke Left v. the Alt-Right: A New Study Shows They’re More Alike Than Either Side Realizes

https://quillette.com/2020/08/03/the...side-realizes/

What goes around comes around.

In 1996, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole called out Time Warner for publishing hip hop music whose lyrics glamorized violence against police officers. (“I would like to ask the executives of Time Warner a question: Is this what you intended to accomplish with your careers? You have sold your souls, but must you debase our nation and threaten our children as well?”) A quarter-century later, it’s progressives demanding the cancelation of movies and TV shows that present the police in any kind of positive light (and numerous other “problematic” themes). Alyssa Rosenberg of the Washington Post, a former colleague of mine, wants us to “shut down all police movies and TV shows.

I guess authoritarians know no real political allegiance.

It’s the same puritanical spirit that prevailed during the heyday of the Moral Majority, except that it’s been marshalled in service of a different faith. And you can hardly blame disaffected progressives, such as Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, for declaring that the “left is now the right” when it comes to smothering cultural and intellectual pluralism.

Whereas the dominant strain of cultural leftism once was primarily characterized by a spirit of compassion, it increasingly has come to be dominated by intolerant scolds who seem more eager to shame heretics than to do actual good in the world. Studies like this one should serve as a wake-up call: Given the strident manner with which progressives denounce bigotry, it surely should trouble them to know that, where underlying personalities are concerned, priests and heretics look very much alike.

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by u crank

Sorry but again you don't seem to grasp how the American system works. The President does not wield unlimited power. He is restrained by Congress and the Judicial system. The President cannot introduce and pass laws. Congress does that and it is elected, both Senators and House Reps. by popular vote. The people can decide if they want to check the President's power and they do quite regularly. Most mid term elections go against the White House.

By real results I assume that you mean the popular vote. That may work in some countries but in the USA that would mean a permanent Democratic White House. Would that be good for the country as a whole? I doubt it. In my life time Presidents usually get two terms and then the other party takes over. The only variation from that was Carter and Bush Sr. The people who complain the most are usually the people who didn't win. Hillary Clinton and her supporters and the Trump haters.

Real tyranny would be a country ruled by one political party.

Yes, an example, many minority districts have been carved out in states that once had no representation due to the popular vote. Many early pro arguments of carving out these districts was the premise of how the electoral vote ensures proper representation of all states.

[skidman]

Originally Posted by u crank

Actually it works exactly as the founding fathers intended. The popuation and political leanings in America are not a secret. Large and very populated coastal regions in America are deep blue and have been for a while. If the Senate seats were allotted proportionally and the President was elected by popular vote Democrats and the left would realize their dream of permanent control of Washington. The current system of two Senate seats for each state and the Electoral College system prevents that.

"The president should represent the majority of square miles not the majority of people because this procedure helps to enforce my political opinion."

It doesn't get any weirder than this.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by skidman

"The president should represent the majority of square miles not the majority of people because this procedure helps to enforce my political opinion."

It doesn't get any weirder than this.

Interesting thought but you like Skybird don't address the problematic situation that I have mentioned. That without the Electoral College and two Senators from each state one political party would dominate the US government. If you are in favor of that then be honest enough to say so. If you are not then what is your solution?

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Catfish

@Marcus: both sides will have to accept the outcome of the election, and they will. It is all threatening the "enemy" and ape-like behaviour. Mud-slinging. Posing

I think you are 110 % correct. Both will accept the outcome of the election.

I can't imaging what would happen if one of them reject the election result
Politically and in the society if one of them loose.


Markus

[Skybird]

Gerrymandering, anyone? Look it up.

The final nail in every election's coffin.

You see, all these rules to me are just attempts to prevent obvious counting results. If the voting result leads to "majority tyrannizes minority", then the area for which the vote applies maybe is too big in adminstration and jurisdiction (and mind you, I follow Brennan and Hoppe in their criticism of states and modern democracies, so I hardly am suspicious to be in favour of big states). The ancient Greeks, whose state concept that they called "democracy" indeed was aristocratic), indeed knew the majority dominating the minority as one of their three basic models of "tyrannis". Their answere was, wanted or accidentally, to not let the plebs have anythign to say at all, only 5-15% of the aristocratic male, free, rich elites in a given city state were allowed to raise their voice in the assembly and to give their votes when an issue was to be decided by majority vote. The way we understand democracy today to be about general elections for each and everybody, and for societies iclduing millions and dozens and hundreds of millions, imo simply is dysfucntional from beginning on, and gets reinforced by the trend of just any "state" to always, inevitably, become more and more authoritarian. You cannot escape this.

Add to this that in this scenario of general elections for everybody, most voters do not form reasonable, altruistic decisons in full knowledge and competent understanding of all relevant financial, economical, sociological, educational and so forth facts, as it is implied, but highly irrational decisions, egoistic motives and habits and traditions. Thats why the whole show degenerates into that fiasco that election campaigns usually are, and whose phrase firing and word swinging is still one of the best arguments against elections alltogether.

But why do I type this, I have typed it so many times before. I say: don't vote, do not legitimate those of whom you must be expected by now to know that they are not worthy at all and will drive their power interests only and do that with your money and your hand's labour, and further I leave it now to referring once again to Jason Brennan, and Hans-Herrmann Hoppe.