The General 'Murican Politics Thread

[BlueSky]

Thanks a lot @Mad Convoy, that was actually pretty interesting!

Soo, in a way it's like USA kind of broke the "bond"/facade between the two communist countries and since it was done with making a deal with China it could seem dishonoring/jerkish to them if US president were to start getting better along with Russia, especially while the trading shenanigans are still an ongoing thing?

Well, I think this shows rather well how important it is to know about history to understand how stuff like this works.

I think I'll look more into this at some point, this was pretty interesting after all. Thanks again!

[KHCast]

https://apple.news/AUUaQXp63SZCcePmOgYuhaQ

Aaaand Trumps now backtracking on his statements. Expected. 

https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/17/obama-nelson-mandela-lecture

Obama criticizes democrats and progressives methods of arguments 

Also his general thoughts on the shit that went down with Trump

https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2018/07/17/barack-obama-trump-criticism-725977

[Kevin]

I always love when people said “they misspoke” when trying to backtrack on something. It’s a very poor cop out of an excuse to use. 

[Mad Convoy]

3 hours ago, BlueSky said:

Soo, in a way it's like USA kind of broke the "bond"/facade between the two communist countries and since it was done with making a deal with China it could seem dishonoring/jerkish to them if US president were to start getting better along with Russia, especially while the trading shenanigans are still an ongoing thing?

Partially correct. For sure, China would be upset for those reasons-- the US, after all, was responsible for convincing China to stop pretending to like Russia, freeing its government from several Russian obligations and ties. It would seem very hypocritical and jarring for the US to suddenly chain itself to Russia in any way.

Another issue is that it goes against the spirit of the trade deals. Beyond the vast economic benefits, there was a mutual "man, fuck Russia" element. That was indeed the main common ground between the US and China at the time, and the one Nixon seized to help make the Chinese open to reason from him. Well, that and coupled with pointing out that the US has been open for decades about how little it likes Russia-- the Maoist precedent of respecting people with hardline and forceful stances no matter how annoying, frustrating, or different they may be was still alive and well back then, and besides, Chinese leadership did not want to appear softer on Soviet Communism than a country that's basically the poster child for capitalism. There was an undeniable element of sabotage towards the government that both parties saw as the greater evil. By making China more reliable and available for trade, they effectively made it better able to push back against Russia in a public manner which it took advantage of. It also destroyed the popular narrative of the time that capitalists and communists cannot compromise, work out deals, or gain anything of value from each other, which made Russia look bad for putting on the facade of never compromising with the enemy (Side note: This wasn't true, of course. It wasn't just the USSR that was ashamed of compromise either-- the US also tried to bury many of its compromises and deals with the USSR to look tough on Communism. But the US at least recognized the ones relating to WWII back when the two countries were allies and the ones that were highly urgent, even if it purposefully glossed over important details and concessions in doing so.).

Trump may not have directly announced a complete breaking off from the US's longstanding deals with China. But he may as well have told the world just how little he appreciates them or values preserving them when he vouches so lovingly for Russia. After all, Russia was the country that said deals were, in part, made to damage economically and influentially in a landmark show of compromise, newfound understanding, and shared disdain between two very different countries. Trying to repair relations with Russia without understanding and acknowledging the US's history, particularly where dealings with China are concerned, is a political nightmare which offers no improvement for anybody involved.

[Candescence]

I miss Obama's presidency. The way he speaks compared to Trump is like night and day, he speaks like a President should.

[Meta77]

The man does have a good voice. Though not all his ideas are good, better than majoritys of trumps but not all.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

I know that a good chunk of us think of Putin as our prickish pissy petulant president's puppeteer, but I gotta ask: What do Americans think of the average Russian nowadays in this political climate? While I don't doubt there are probably Russian equivalent to Trumpers for Putin, what are our views towards them overall? Do we have any xenophobia against them? Do we think most of them are agents for Putin?

[KHCast]

5 minutes ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

I know that a good chunk of us think of Putin as our prickish pissy petulant president's puppeteer, but I gotta ask: What do Americans think of the average Russian nowadays in this political climate? While I don't doubt there are probably Russian equivalent to Trumpers for Putin, what are our views towards them overall? Do we have any xenophobia against them? Do we think most of them are agents for Putin?

I see them as people under the dictatorship of a violent insane man that keeps them from having a free thought without fear looming over them. At least if we’re referring to Russians in Russia and Russian owned territory’s. (Though wouldn’t be shocked if Russian official big names here in the us also have that fear at this point) like I have a gay Russian friend and he told me he was fucking terrified every day living there because he simply existed the way he did. That’s fucked up. So in short, I just feel bad for them having to put up with all this shit and see them as victims of a shit situation where American radicalization will potentially make any Russian look bad because of the actions of a few.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

7 minutes ago, KHCast said:

I see them as people under the dictatorship of a violent insane man that keeps them from having a free thought without fear looming over them. At least if we’re referring to Russians in Russia and Russian owned territory’s. (Though wouldn’t be shocked if Russian official big names here in the us also have that fear at this point) like I have a gay Russian friend and he told me he was fucking terrified every day living there because he simply existed the way he did. That’s fucked up. So in short, I just feel bad for them having to put up with all this shit and see them as victims of a shit situation where American radicalization will potentially make any Russian look bad because of the actions of a few.

Yeah, kinda figured that was probably the case. As much as I see Putin as a threat to us all, it's really the people directly under his tyrannical rule who suffer first.

[Patticus]

19 hours ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

President Pence would be just as useful for the GOP agenda, if not moreso, but putting Mike in charge would quite possibly alienate a lot of MAGA folks and cost the GOP the 2020 elections.

I don't think it can be understated just how huge a catastrophe it'd be for the GOP to have to remove their own president from office. It'd be the by far the single biggest win for Democrats during a Republican administration in decades, and no matter how calm and collected Pence is, questions surrounding his bigoted policies, what he knew about Russia and when, the lies he told for Flynn, etc, would quickly come to the fore.

It could very well cost the GOP the next general election, that's true, and it'd more than likely prompt heated Republican primaries in the 2020 race. Trump might even run as an independent!

My big concern is that, during and after removing Trump, Bannon and the conservative media machine will stoke his base's anger and more than likely whip them into a violent frenzy, and there may even be very real pushes for secession in some particularly fervently Trumpist states. This would be an eminently exploitable situation for China and Russia, which would both get involved and try hard to further destabilize the country. I'm not saying we'd fly into a civil war situation, but there will be unforeseen consequences and it'd get scary.

[Meta77]

I wish there was a stronger middle ground party. If one thing I dislike is the hate both sides show towards each other. Their is no real middle ground. Your either right or left. Today's youth seem either far left or right.

[Heckboy]

15 hours ago, Candescence said:

I miss Obama's presidency. 

Me too.    I miss him almost as much as those Libyan kids miss their parents. 

[Candescence]

2 hours ago, Meta77 said:

I wish there was a stronger middle ground party. If one thing I dislike is the hate both sides show towards each other. Their is no real middle ground. Your either right or left. Today's youth seem either far left or right.

Honestly, I'm inclined to argue that 'centrism' is a goddamn myth, and this instance, and outright dangerous, as being a centrist would essentially require capitulating to some of the terrible shit the right wing want, especially when the right have no interest in bipartisanship anymore.

And even then, with the increasing polarisation of US politics, the only way to allow more 'centrist' voices is to retool the entire electoral system so more than two parties are actually viable. First past the post simply does not work if you want a healthy multi-party system (granted, the founding fathers didn't want political parties at all, and guess how that worked out), you need, at least, preferential voting, which would significantly open up opportunities for third parties, as there is literally no such thing as "throwing your vote away" in a preferential voting system.

Also, mandatory voting. if you don't want to vote, just throw in a donkey vote, but it should be the duty of every person eligible to vote to actually register and vote.

[KHCast]

http://thehill.com/homenews/397379-casino-owners-sue-las-vegas-shooting-victims-to-try-to-avoid-legal-liability

Casino’s suing the victims...wtf?

Also lol Trump for the whole days been backtracking even more 

[Tani Coyote]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/26/politics/republicans-oppose-legal-illegal-immigration/index.html

At some point in your life you have no doubt heard the chestnut "I don't have problems with immigrants so long as they're legal."

The modern GOP no longer reflects that view. The majority of GOP representatives want to cut all immigration, not just undocumented. What keeps the proposal from passing? A moderate camp within the GOP caucus, about 25% of it, that can ally with the Democrats to defeat any such bill.

The GOP has always been the party of wealthy interests, which has led it to support a variety of causes, but it is increasingly beholden to religious, racial and xenophobic populism.

On 7/17/2018 at 10:11 AM, BlueSky said:

Umm, this may be a bit of a dumb question, but how? What is it that makes it so?

You don't even need to go over the historical split between China and Russia to understand it (although it certainly helps lay a foundation), I think.

Take a look at a world map: Russia covers a ton of China's border, and the only reason it does not cover more is because Mongolia's borders were designed with keeping the two countries separated.

Put simply, if Russia became too close to the West, it would make China feel extremely threatened. As it stands, while we've pursued a degree of friendship with China, there is still a ton of rivalry and enmity over Korea, the South China Sea, and global business rivalries. That our countries represent two completely different approaches to worldview - free market capitalism and democracy versus state capitalism and authoritarian one party rule - adds to the tension. China is too integrated into the world economy to have the same level of Cold War that we had with the Soviets, but the tension is still there. For a comparison, see how Iran does not like the fact the US is allied with countries that make up most of Iran's border, and you can get an idea why encirclement causes a lot of issues.

But yes, so long as there is that Sino-American tension, Russia has a delicate balancing act where it must not get too close to either power. Nor should either the West or China be pushing too hard to monopolize Russia's friendship. While Russia no longer has the same level of power the Soviet Union had, its sheer size and location means it remains important in geopolitics, its natural resources aside.

Another way to put it is this: if the US really wanted friendship with Russia, it would need to simultaneously befriend China. I do not see either one occurring any time soon, because both of the countries are in the grips of tyrants. China looked to be making serious progress, but "Papa Xi" has monopolized power and it will probably take decades for China to liberalize again.

14 hours ago, Meta77 said:

I wish there was a stronger middle ground party. If one thing I dislike is the hate both sides show towards each other. Their is no real middle ground. Your either right or left. Today's youth seem either far left or right.

You solved your own issue, I think. There is no "middle" other than the flimsy middle peddled by guys like France's Macron.

What is the "middle?" Taking the moderate stance on every issue, which is ridiculous? Being far left socially but far right fiscally (e.g. Libertarians)?

Left and right wing parties take hold because they're the most easy to work with.

9 hours ago, KHCast said:

http://thehill.com/homenews/397379-casino-owners-sue-las-vegas-shooting-victims-to-try-to-avoid-legal-liability

Casino’s suing the victims...wtf?

The headline is honestly baity.

What the casino is doing is heading off liability suits, so it's initiating the suit to basically prevent being forced to pay out money.

Of course, how to view all this depends on how culpable you consider the casino to be. Since the shooting, many Vegas hotels have adopted policies of mandatory housekeeping checks of every room every day or two.

[KHCast]

1 minute ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

What the casino is doing is heading off liability suits, so it's initiating the suit to basically prevent being forced to pay out money.

Of course, how to view all this depends on how culpable you consider the casino to be. Since the shooting, many Vegas hotels have adopted policies of mandatory housekeeping checks of every room every day or two.

Ah I see. That puts in in a bit of a better light. Still though, Idk something about it seems a bit gross regardless 

[Tani Coyote]

7 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Ah I see. That puts in in a bit of a better light. Still though, Idk something about it seems a bit gross regardless 

There is no really good outcome for this, I think.

A lot of people treat lawsuits as lotteries, no matter how genuine their grievance is, and a lot of lawyers are happy to play along because it increases how much of a cut they get.

This ugly business of preemptively suing is in response to that.

Goes to show how messed up our economic system is, though. If we actually took care of our citizens, maybe people would not be inclined to think of personal tragedy as a way to get ahead. There are studies detailing how enormous inequality breeds feelings of hostility and lack of trust.

That impacts the wealthy as well as the poor, too. A lot of people asked why the Vegas shooter would do what he did when he "had it all," but when you consider what the sociological data says about how meaningless wealth actually is in a society like ours...

[Patticus]

Quote

Two weeks before his inauguration, Donald J. Trump was shown highly classified intelligence indicating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered complex cyberattacks to sway the 2016 American election.

The evidence included texts and emails from Russian military officers and information gleaned from a top-secret source close to Mr. Putin, who had described to the C.I.A. how the Kremlin decided to execute its campaign of hacking and disinformation.

Mr. Trump sounded grudgingly convinced, according to several people who attended the intelligence briefing. But ever since, Mr. Trump has tried to cloud the very clear findings that he received on Jan. 6, 2017, which his own intelligence leaders have unanimously endorsed.

The shifting narrative underscores the degree to which Mr. Trump regularly picks and chooses intelligence to suit his political purposes. That has never been more clear than this week.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/world/europe/trump-intelligence-russian-election-meddling-.html

So, whenever Trump has said, or says, that Russia didn't do it, or posits some vague idea of a third party being to blame ("...a 400lb man in his mom's basement," "...or someone else."), you can be absolutely sure that he is lying through his teeth - not suspicious, not fairly sure, not pretty sure, but absolutely. The intelligence on this is much better than we imagined even just a few months ago, and the conclusion unequivocal and inescapable: Russia attacked the US' 2016 general election at Vladimir Putin's behest (and it will very likely do it again).

[Tani Coyote]

This honestly reminds me of the film Man of the Year.

The key difference being that when the Presidential candidate who won in that became aware he won because of a vote counting error rather than his own merit, while he was bummed out about it, he still accepted it.

Trump absolutely fucking hates the idea he would not be in that chair if not for Russia, and that's why he's so insistent on downplaying it. He cannot stand losing, nor can he even process the idea of losing. His own statements prior to Election Day are evidence enough of that, when he said he could only lose due to massive voter fraud... which he insisted exists because he did not win the consolation prize of the popular vote.

Of course, this is precisely why I think 2018 and 2020 will be such terrifying races. He's actively trying to destroy Americans' confidence in the electoral system. It's a stark contrast to Democratic arguments, which tend to argue that while voter suppression is being used on a large scale, the system itself is fundamentally sound. The issue with them is not fraud, but the hurdles that are put in place to prevent participation, distorting the results in a different way.

Quite honestly, Trump is that movie villain who brags about how he always wins. Which of course, will make it all the more satisfying when he's finally defeated.

[KHCast]

So anyone think the midterms will have massive Russian interference like a lot of people seem to fear? 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On 7/18/2018 at 11:25 AM, Candescence said:

Honestly, I'm inclined to argue that 'centrism' is a goddamn myth, and this instance, and outright dangerous, as being a centrist would essentially require capitulating to some of the terrible shit the right wing want, especially when the right have no interest in bipartisanship anymore.

I identify as centrist, and I sure as hell wouldn’t capitulate to any of the terrible shit from the GOP. Not that being centrist is perfect, but given that the right have little interest in bipartisanship, that by definition isn’t very centrist since it ignores the left—and centrist groups tend to want to combine workable aspects of both sides, presumably within reason, tho like every party people can use it as a shield for personal agendas that selfishly benefit themselves.

[8ther]

That is something i'm fearful of as well, it sucks that not every voting booth allows paper ballots.

[Mad Convoy]

1 hour ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

This honestly reminds me of the film Man of the Year.

The key difference being that when the Presidential candidate who won in that became aware he won because of a vote counting error rather than his own merit, while he was bummed out about it, he still accepted it.

Trump absolutely fucking hates the idea he would not be in that chair if not for Russia, and that's why he's so insistent on downplaying it. He cannot stand losing, nor can he even process the idea of losing. His own statements prior to Election Day are evidence enough of that, when he said he could only lose due to massive voter fraud... which he insisted exists because he did not win the consolation prize of the popular vote.

Of course, this is precisely why I think 2018 and 2020 will be such terrifying races. He's actively trying to destroy Americans' confidence in the electoral system. It's a stark contrast to Democratic arguments, which tend to argue that while voter suppression is being used on a large scale, the system itself is fundamentally sound. The issue with them is not fraud, but the hurdles that are put in place to prevent participation, distorting the results in a different way.

Quite honestly, Trump is that movie villain who brags about how he always wins. Which of course, will make it all the more satisfying when he's finally defeated.

I think that's a fair assessment of what's going on here.

The thing is, the man doesn't even care how much damage or negative consequences his words have on people. He won't admit to any Russian hacking solely because he has quite literally suppressed any idea that he could not have had a legitimate victory in some way, that somehow he literally can't lose. As he keeps losing more and more, the effort he has to put into denial to maintain it just increases and increases.

Not that he is not experienced in this field. He's been suppressing the idea that he can lose for decades, and is quite skilled now as a result. The fallout of his denial probably won't be that he stops being in denial--- he's too far gone. Rather, as his limits for suppressing inconvenient information gets pushed more and more with every condemnation and failure and he becomes increasingly exhausted from firing back at critics and denying failures, I expect him to become more paranoid and angry. He will likely try to pass some scary-sounding laws because of this-- most likely ones that restrict or censor journalism in some way, or consolidates a lot of power to the president, or something that Putin wants in exchange for protecting Trump from the truth. Try, however, is the operative word. Congress and the Supreme Court will definitely be having nothing that cedes any of their power to the president at this point. Frequent swing voters in Congress also have a habit of killing blatantly unconstitutional laws even if they would benefit from them in some way, and even several hardline right wingers won't vote for something that reeks of Putin (and Trump has been only been subtle about anything regarding his connections with Putin in his own mind). And if these desperate moves come around the late 2018, then there'll be a minuscule chance at most that the GOP is letting anything pass. It'd be political suicide to do anything else, really.

That's actually kind of the thing with Trump-- "try" is always the operative word, but "did" seldom is. Not saying that he hasn't done legitimately bad things as a result of his incompetence, as the corpses in Yemen will attest to, or that he's never succeeded in any of his initiatives, as his pick for the Supreme Court will attest to. But he's got a real knack for undermining himself, whether through poor wording or tactics, that prevent a lot of his goals from coming to fruition. Many people blame him for undermining confidence in journalism, but apparently that wasn't very high during Obama's presidency either. Trump's constant condemnations of news media, that tend to confirm more speculations than they expel, have actually slightly raised people's trust in journalism. Trump tries to undermine people's faith in the electoral system, but in doing so accidentally promotes popular vote measures that also prevent gerrymandering, encourages unlikely voters to get out there and vote, and in some cases makes people stick even more to the idea that the system isn't inherently bad.

The reasoning for this is complicated, but I think the main contributor is the man's strategy of blanket condemnation. Frequent condemnation centering around the same points is a good tool for gaslighting-- but when this tool is overused, which is how Trump uses it, it actually becomes worn down and increasingly ineffective. The subconscious mind starts to find the constant insistence suspicious instead of reassuring, and it reengages the brain's defenses against BS. Eventually, it actually starts having the opposite effect to gaslighting, where people become more faithful in and insistent on the things they're being condemned for instead of less. I can actually see that happening right now, even starting to seep into the MAGA crowd, as people are uniting against the man who used to divide them.

2018 and 2020 will most likely be quite the ride, I give you that, but most probably not dramatic enough to be scary.

[Meta77]

1 hour ago, Jiren (Metro) said:

That is something i'm fearful of as well, it sucks that not every voting booth allows paper ballots.

Has there been evidence that Russians did anything to voting numbers. Cause every article and story i see at most they did was buy ads that somehow made people vote a certain way? and they breached a database of voter info but noting to suggest actual machines changed any votes?

[Patticus]

10 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Has there been evidence that Russians did anything to voting numbers. Cause every article and story i see at most they did was buy ads that somehow made people vote a certain way? and they breached a database of voter info but noting to suggest actual machines changed any votes?

Every criminal worth his or her salt will case their target before they hit it. The Russians breached US systems in 2016, but to my knowledge didn't do much but look around, because they were familiarizing themselves with the target.

2018 and, more importantly, 2020, are when we are more likely to see them strike. I don't mean vote tallies being directly altered, either - a zero day attack might well involve a lot of people being purged from the electoral rolls altogether. If we wake up on election day '18 or '20, and through the day start seeing reports of huge numbers of voters showing up at the polling stations and not appearing on the rolls, you know exactly who to blame.