American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

The 12th Amendment states:

Speaker of the House!

[troutman]

It is easy to forget all the items in Trump’s laundry list of transgressions:

For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/u...E-13B348CDBE51

Despicable human being, wholly unqualified for any public office.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

I’m more concerned about what happens in my country and the damage policies can be done here. I’m more concerned about the kids dying in the United States because of bad economic policies, bad social policies, and bad governance. We continue to lose our freedoms and install a Christian Nationalist regime and the whole world will be ####ed. Yes, very selfish.

Do you realize how much of a racist sociopath this makes you sound like? Why are the lives of American children inherently more valuable than Palestinian children?

[SportsJunky]

Why is the Donald talking about the size of Arnold Palmer's wrench? He's so weird.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

The exact opposite. Right wingers who refuse to vote for Trump (because they understand how dangerous and depraved he is) are much better and more caring than those who vote for him.

People who vote for Harris (because they understand the obvious need to keep Trump out of office, and also understand that he would make the Gaza situation even worse) are making a more sensible, responsible choice than those who stay home or vote 3rd party.

Bonus points for right wingers (usual Republican voters) who vote for Harris.

OK, so it isn’t really about whether people vote or some test of whether they support the causes they actually support and what is “right,” it’s literally just “voting Democrat.”

I would caution taking that attitude. I think that attitude encourages and enables the same on the side you disagree with, and it’s pretty difficult to overcome.

People should give their vote to the party who they feel has earned it, and that goes for both sides. If that means they don’t vote for anyone, that should be encourage. That actually teaches parties that they have to understand what it is people actually care about, instead of extreme elements being able to run away with the party with little resistance.

Your attitude (and Lanny’s) enable Trump.

[Sultan]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Do you realize how much of a racist sociopath this makes you sound like? Why are the lives of American children inherently more valuable than Palestinian children?

Where in the post that you quoted was racism? People generally care about what affects them most and what is close to home.

Back on topic, if you ever bet on the Cowboys or anyone popular you generally do get good value. Though as a gambler I am still not touching that but i hope someone bets a million on Harris and wins and takes the house.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

Speaker of the House!

Doling out the charm
Ready with a handshake
And an open palm.

[Paulie Walnuts]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1848183366186663989

This is who the alpha males are going to vote for lmao.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

The 12th Amendment states:

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

However...

Twenty-Second Amendment
Section 1

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.


It says "shall not be elected to the office" not "ineligible to hold the office".

That might seem like a technicality, but it's all this SC needs. They'll be able to say Trump can be president again via the VP loophole.

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

OK, so it isn’t really about whether people vote or some test of whether they support the causes they actually support and what is “right,” it’s literally just “voting Democrat.”

I would caution taking that attitude. I think that attitude encourages and enables the same on the side you disagree with, and it’s pretty difficult to overcome.

People should give their vote to the party who they feel has earned it, and that goes for both sides. If that means they don’t vote for anyone, that should be encourage. That actually teaches parties that they have to understand what it is people actually care about, instead of extreme elements being able to run away with the party with little resistance.

Your attitude (and Lanny’s) enable Trump.

Consider this analogy... if you were walking down the street and someone were to randomly start attacking you, would you refuse to defend yourself because you don't want to promote a culture of violence?

The thing is, Trump is getting huge numbers of votes from people who don't think he's earned their vote, but they're voting for him anyway because they've been fed mountains of disinformation, and have been fear mongered into thinking Democrats and immigrants are plotting to ruin their lives.

But here's the key difference between the right wing and the left/center coalition... the right wing actually does have a plan to ruin America and the world in fundamental ways, including silencing their political opponents, slamming the brakes on the energy transition, and giving more tax cuts to the ultra rich while hugely increasing the cost of living for most people. (Project 2025)

The right wing constantly uses projection to confuse and terrify the American people, because they don't want an informed electorate to see what they're up to. That's why it's disingenuous to say "both sides are using fear to promote their messaging". One side is warning about real dangers, the other is demagoguing and peddling fake dangers to create chaos and confusion.

So the choices for the anti-Trump coalition are: 1) unite behind Harris and prevent the US from becoming a fascist dictatorship, or 2) stay home and let Trump and his sychophants destroy the futures of you, everyone you care about, and humanity as a whole.

I wish those weren't the only two choices. I really, really wish they weren't. But they are.

As for the earn my vote mentality... here's the thing about that. The other side doesn't have that mentality, and they probably never will. Protesting the democratic party and preventing them from winning this election won't cause a huge portion of Trump voters to suddenly go "oh golly gee, look at how principled those guys on the left are! I'm gonna be like them and withhold my vote until the Republican party changes and gives me exactly I want".

And here's the other thing. You (from what I gather) are disappointed that Harris isn't promising an arms embargo against Israel. So you feel like your vote hasn't been earned. But think for a minute about pro-Israel Harris voters... how disappointed do you think they would feel if she promised an arms embargo? Suddenly they would be the ones would feel like their votes haven't been earned, and some of them would probably not vote.

So if you're Harris in this situation, what do you do? The answer is, you do what gives you the best chance to win the election. With the stakes this high, winning the election is of utmost importance.

So what it comes down to is (IMO), everyone who understands the danger (it is not hyperbole to describe it as unprecedented danger) of a 2nd Trump presidency should vote for Harris, even if they have serious disagreements with her regarding Israel/Gaza. After all, letting Trump win won't save any Palestinian lives, and will likely result in a worse situation for them.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

However...

Twenty-Second Amendment
Section 1

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.


It says "shall not be elected to the office" not "ineligible to hold the office".

That might seem like a technicality, but it's all this SC needs. They'll be able to say Trump can be president again via the VP loophole.

I knew you'd bring that up. You said there was nothing in the constitution that forbade a third term and I pointed one out. Checkmate, atheists.

On a different topic, Musk is supporting Trump because he's possibly going to prison for defrauding the government, i.e. SpaceX not fulfilling contracts.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

I knew you'd bring that up. You said there was nothing in the constitution that forbade a third term and I pointed one out. Checkmate, atheists.

On a different topic, Musk is supporting Trump because he's possibly going to prison for defrauding the government, i.e. SpaceX not fulfilling contracts.

You completely missed the point of what I said. The 22nd Amendment only prevents a 2-term president from running for a 3rd term, it doesn't prevent him from being the president again. So if he can become president without running, the constitution doesn't explicitly forbid it.

[Biff]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

There's a theory I read that I think is interesting about polls and betting odds. Right now a lot of the shift in polls has come from low quality and/or GOP backed pollsters. And the betting markets are being flooded with money backing Trump. The theory suggests that this is being done to create the narrative that Trump is a favorite, closing in on big/overwhelming favorite, so that when he loses the "It was stolen" narrative has its baseline. "Remember the polls? Remember Polymarket? They showed Trump in landslide territory. Harris had to have cheated, there's no other way!"

And it makes sense: the GOP can't run on reality anymore so running on crafted narratives is their only real play. And since Americans are dumb as ####, the fact that the GOP said forever that polls don't matter, are rigged, etc... that they will have totally flipped their opinion on it won't actually matter. With the correctly crafted narrative they can easily convince enough people that overturning the results makes sense.

It makes the early "Too Big to Rig" messaging being put forward by some of the "insiders" (MTG, etc..) seem a bit more purposeful and also alarming.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

You completely missed the point of what I said. The 22nd Amendment only prevents a 2-term president from running for a 3rd term, it doesn't prevent him from being the president again. So if he can become president without running, the constitution doesn't explicitly forbid it.

I didn't miss the point; I ignored it.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

You are as crazy as the Magas you hate. He pressed her when she tried to deflect, again, it's what an interview looks like. Most of her responses "I'd like to talk about Donald Trump..." which wasn't the question. She's the current administration and Americans are pissed off about the state of their country, he's giving her an opportunity to say why she should be president and her response "Trump is crazy". That's true, but it's not an answer to the question Baier was asking.

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts...ew-on-fox-news

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Can you link an example of Trump giving a straight answer without deflecting when asked a tough question? I'll wait...

I always love when people light their hair on fire over every little thing that Harris says, yet constantly give Trump free passes on all his unhinged nonsense, lies, and Hitlerean rhetoric he's been using over the past 9 years.

Are you surprised by that coming from corperatejay, though?

[Itse]

The whole debate over constitutional details is... not totally irrelevant, but not super relevant either.

First of all, Trump is probably not going to even last 4 years, he's already in fairly obvious cognitive decline that should disqualify him just like it did with Biden.

So however this plays out, Trump is unlikely to be in power in 2028, regardless of whether he's still technically the president at that point, and the GOP certainly aren't going to sell another Trump term.

Second: when governments stop being rules by law and democracy, the technicality of political positions becomes a secondary concern. Putin was just as much in power as a PM as he was as a president. When you have enough power and a ruthless unwillingness to give it away, there are literally limitless ways to dress that power up in whatever roles and titles you want. You can still have all the roles stated in the constitution, just without them having real power.

Here's an example for the US... US senate and congress are already borderline non-functioning entities, I don't think it would take that much to just permafreeze them. Then you replace all the necessary people in civil service, the police, the military leadership, and federal agencies with party loyalists, and then all you need is a president who won't stir up trouble and a supreme court who keeps saying that everything is going according to law.

The only issue that point is how do you make sure your cadre of party loyalists stay in place, and you probably want to legally solidify the transfer of power away from democratically elected people to those elected by the party, but that's an extremely solvable issue if you have the presidency and the supreme court.

Especially if you have a president who's kinda dumb to begin with, growing old, easily distracted, and just doesn't care as long as he believes it's in his interest.

So the threat to democracy is not Trump 2028. It's not even really a single dictator seizing power. The much more realistic and really extremely likely threat is the ultraconservatives seizing power in a way which severely limits what elections even mean.

(You can of course always manufacture a crisis to postpone elections or change how they are run "temporarily".)

The threat is the US turning into some variation of a Russian style oligarchy, a Iranian style theocracy and a Chinese style single-party rule. All of those countries have elections, people can still vote. Voting just has very limited significance to the government.

It's unlikely that we'll be all the way there yet in 2028, that kind of transformation takes a long time, but it is very likely that after the Project 2025 people have been in power, the US could so far down that path that it's likely to end up as non-democracy through sheer momentum.

Once concentration of power starts to gather momentum, positions of power in the country rapidly start to fill up with people who see what's coming, and want to get in on the action. People who believe in democracy and want to protect the system will over time get pushed out and replaced by extremely cooperative bootlickers who want a part of that sweet authoritarian power. When that starts happening, its borderline impossible to root it out through that same system of democracy, you basically need some kind of a revolution, but you can't have a revolution before the country is already a dictatorship.

That's why countries going to the precipice of authoritarian rule but turning back are extremely rare.

Just in general: it's extremely naive to think that a system of governance will not be fundamentally changed if it's being run by people who want to change it. It doesn't matter what the laws say or tradition says or the constitution says, if those in power explicitly want to end democracy, they will find a way.



For dictatorships to topple, you very often need a shift in generations, because the population that got into the problem is not the one that can get you out of it.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Do you realize how much of a racist sociopath this makes you sound like? Why are the lives of American children inherently more valuable than Palestinian children?

WTF??? Do you know how much of a deranged leftist loon you sound like, ALL THE TIME? You've gone an extra step here by trying to turn this into something racist, and manufacturing a Sophie's choice moment between American and Palestinian children.

I'm not saying, nor have I ever said, that American children or any other children are more valuable to others. That was YOU in trying to develop a narrative. What I have been consistent in saying is this is an election about American politics. My concerns are about my country and what my vote can control. It's about what policies can be implemented as a result of my vote. I have to compare and contrast between the likely outcomes of the two candidates' platforms and make a decision based on that. The majority of my concerns are domestic policies which could impact 340 million Americans. Foreign policy is a very small component of what that vote controls and is hardly a major issue in comparison. I'm more concerned about the democracy in my country coming to an end and the installation of a Christofascist regime. The loss of rights and the loss of programs to help feed and educate the poor in the United States are front and center to vote.

On foreign policy, I've been very clear that the United States policy toward Israel is not going to change based on the choices at hand. Neither are going to withdraw support for Israel nor do anything to improve the state of the conflict. What I can easily reconcile is a vote for the Christofacist is also a vote for a more aggressive support of Israel and a lifting of any pressure on the Israeli government, meaning the extermination of those children you seem so concerned about. So, I am voting in support of the party that has the most friendly approach to dealing with the situation, because that is the only choice I have in that regard. I can't make up scenarios in my head and try and project those into the voting possibilities, because those possibilities do not exist and do not have a possibility of becoming a reality.

Here's the part you nutbars on the left just don't get. Even if some fringe group ran on that single issue and I decided to vote for that group to make a point, all I would do is spoil my ballot because that group has zero chance of winning the election and implementing the policy you have a fever dream over. The ultimate outcome would be a failed ballot that would then help the Christofascist set win the election, implement the most harmful policy to the issue I decided to let guide my ballot, and then lead to the implementation of destructive policies to my own country. Wouldn't that be a great use of my vote? Fail in every aspect!

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Do you realize how much of a racist sociopath this makes you sound like? Why are the lives of American children inherently more valuable than Palestinian children?

The fraction of the population of any country who care just as much about the welfare of people outside their country is tiny. That’s just human nature. It has nothing to do with racism.

Foreign policy barely registers on the radar of elections anywhere.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

So what it comes down to is (IMO), everyone who understands the danger (it is not hyperbole to describe it as unprecedented danger) of a 2nd Trump presidency should vote for Harris, even if they have serious disagreements with her regarding Israel/Gaza. After all, letting Trump win won't save any Palestinian lives, and will likely result in a worse situation for them.

You totally ignored my point just so you could reiterate this talking point again.

I get it, Trump freaks you out, you don’t want to live if he’s Big P. But from the bottom of my heart, calm the #### down and listen to what people are saying.

If you’ve built “the right” into this evil monolith voting block, yet regardless of the real or imagined danger, you employ the exact same rhetoric and thinking that enables people like Trump and DeSantisand allows them to thrive.

This is not a game you can switch on and off. You argue you shouldn’t have any principles because “the other side” doesn’t. That’s not how principles work, you’re just justifying not having any. Whether you want to admit it or not, there are going to be a lot of good, principled people who for one reason or another vote Trump. It’s just the way it is. They’re not all evil crazy rednecks that want a fascist to kill all their enemies. Whether it’s differing political views, a differing sense of the “danger,” or just a lack of education, there’s a whole swath of people that will vote Trump that would, in fact, vote for someone a lot less crazy and a lot better for America.

So yeah, you should believe parties need to earn a vote. This isn’t controversial, unique, or something that you can just “pause” for one election. The fear mongering stuff just is not effective. And, at the end of the day, there’s very little you can do to convince someone how to vote, so you need to be happy with how you approach things. I’m not sure you realize it, but you are really good at projecting your own approach onto what you imagine as the very worst parts of the right wing.

As much as people like yourself don’t want to admit it, if Harris loses, it isn’t because of people who care about issues you don’t, or non-voters, or even Trump voters. It isn’t because she’s Black, or a woman. It’s because they ran a shruggie campaign and expected to win because they weren’t Trump. Instead of getting their head out of their ass and actually understanding the people they’re trying to govern, they maintained the status quo. Instead of capitalizing on the momentum they had, they said “no thanks” and immediately went back to the boring, uninspired Democratic Party we all know and love.

And you know why they do it? Because they’ve got people like you (not you, because you can’t vote) that will literally vote for them no matter what. They don’t have to earn your vote, or even care what you think, because you have no principles or interests that would stop you from voting D. They can do whatever, because there’s people like you. And so if they lose, it’s on them, and it’s on the people that enable them to mail it in.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

It’s because they ran a shruggie campaign and expected to win because they weren’t Trump. Instead of getting their head out of their ass and actually understanding the people they’re trying to govern, they maintained the status quo. Instead of capitalizing on the momentum they had, they said “no thanks” and immediately went back to the boring, uninspired Democratic Party we all know and love.

Here’s what registered voters say is important to them:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/651719/...tial-vote.aspx

Which important issues are the Harris campaign neglecting?

[Inglewood Jack]

there's this massive gap in the amount of danger each person believes another Trump presidency represents, y'all are never gonna see eye to eye while that exists