The General 'Murican Politics Thread

[KHCast]

Because that “threat” is a unfounded boogeyman that Democrats are trying to use to corner people into voting their way. “Another trump term will end America” it won’t. And a Biden presidency isn’t gonna fix any of the damage or stop a future trump from happening. After all this is the party that was ready to endorse Bloomberg wholeheartedly had he become the nominee. It’s not supporting fascism, it’s having fucking standards and not black and whiting the situation. Especially when Biden will more than likely loose regardless, so I’d rather not throw out my integrity. Also no, this is just 2016, right down to the “if you don’t vote ____ you’re supporting _____” rhetoric you’re literally using to push people into voting for Biden 

[GentlemanX]

People are literally dying right now due to the current administration's failure to properly address a pandemic. The administration that let kids die in cages. The administration that says we should copy China in appointing a president for life. The administration that is packing the courts with conservative judges which will prevent unbiased rulings for decades. The administration which consistently makes decisions which will permanently wreck both the environment and economic futures of this country and/or planet. The administration that is primarily delegated on twitter. The administration that is run by the leader and his children rather than qualified scientists or other experts. The administration that creates propaganda videos that play at news briefings. The administration that consistently admonishes the press for their existence. The administration that threatens other countries if they won't do it's dirty work. The administration that will block federal funding unless it includes money for a vanity project until a transportation emergency forces it's hand. The administration that wants to remove medical programs because of the person who initiated it. The administration that expects a check that doesn't even cover a month's rent in several cities keeping people with no income alive for 10 weeks. The administration that will delay the release of those checks so the leader can personally put his name on them. The administration who's leader was the third in history to be impeached. The administration that creates controversies at best constant chaos at worst on a daily basis so we've all lost track of them all by this point.

 

You can say Joe Biden is a poor candidate and shouldn't be the nominee; I don't think many if anyone here will disagree with you. But to equate him with what you have to have lived with for the past nearly three and half years? To say you're fine with things continuing as they have because the alternative isn't ideal? I'm sorry, I can't respect that.

[KHCast]

4 minutes ago, GentlemanX said:

People are literally dying right now due to the current administration's failure to properly address a pandemic

And how has Biden or the Democrats shown they’d do better? 

 

6 minutes ago, GentlemanX said:

The administration that is packing the courts with conservative judges which will prevent unbiased rulings for decades.

Again, this entirely is speculation boogeymen.

 

7 minutes ago, GentlemanX said:

The administration which consistently makes decisions which will permanently wreck both the environment and economic futures of this country and/or planet.

See my first quote response. 
 

Most of your “the trump administration sucks” points can honestly be attributed to democrats. They aren’t saints, they’re not heroes. Nothing about them makes me feel they’re a good option. Democrats want my vote? Don’t push a fucking  joke and turn me off your platform. If you wanna vote for Biden basically rewarding the party for doing nothing, in turn not encouraging them to improve since, again, they’re basically cornering you into voting for them, go ahead. I’m not.
 

I don’t care if you don’t respect me for that choice. I really don’t. I’m not voting for one rapist dl racist over another rapist that offers nothing outside “he’s not trump” fuck that bullshit

[Plasme]

Not voting for Biden over Trump because he's not progressive is laughable. It's very simple. Not voting for Biden works as an unused vote which could have helped Biden beat Trump. So if you aren't going to vote for Biden then you are indirectly helping Trump.

I reject the simplistic notion that Biden and Trump are exactly the same. I could talk about how the two have policies that are very different (most notably on the minimum wage - this isn't some small matter, it will be a huge impact on people's lives). But you aren't just voting for Biden, but the Democrat party and to end the Republican domination of the Senate. That's the main goal really, because the Republican party as a whole is the threat - not just Trump.

Now I think the Democrats arent great at all, but they are better on virtually every progressive issue than the Republican party as a whole. And significantly so. There's a reason why poor people and ethnic minorities overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Their lives will be seriously affected by this election. If you don't vote for Biden, you are complicit. It's as simple as that.

Also, to answer your cringey mene picture, Bernie endorsed Biden, because he understands that we have to operate within a flawed system to get the best result available. Throwing everything out and letting Trump win in cynicism might make you look pure, but it doesn't do anything to improve the lives of people who are worst affected by him.

[KHCast]

The fact that all these responses have effectively still opted to attempt to convince me with “because he’s not trump” still is kinda hilarious. 

 “So if you aren't going to vote for Biden then you are indirectly helping Trump.”

 

fine. Still not voting for Biden

[Plasme]

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

The fact that all these responses have effectively still opted to attempt to convince me with “because he’s not trump” still is kinda hilarious. 
 

 

 

fine. Still not voting for Biden

My response is more along the lines of "because it's not one of the worst Republican parties in US history".

[Winston]

I'm voting for Biden because I'm concerned about the Supreme Court as well as what is currently going on with the handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Who knows what justices could retire in the coming years, and four years is a long time. I really don't see RBG serving another four years, I mean it's totally possible she could, but I'm just saying. The Supreme Court would have a conservative majority for a very long time, and it's good to have a little bit of a differing opinion on there, but it'd be six to three. I think that's a bit much. 

[KHCast]

21 minutes ago, Plasme said:

My response is more along the lines of "because it's not one of the worst Republican parties in US history".

So “he’s not trump” more or less. Gotcha

[Plasme]

5 minutes ago, KHCast said:

So “he’s not trump” more or less. Gotcha

Look, it isn't as straightforward as you are casting it. Biden will raise the minimum wage, Trump won't. Biden will lift the Muslim ban, Trump won't. Trump believes climate change is made up and will contribute to the destruction of the planet, Biden doesn't. Just a few obvious differences between the two. These are significant differences between the two of them which have a serious impact on people's lives. Does Biden go far enough? Probably not. Is he significantly different nonetheless? Yes.

I'm a huge Bernie fan and am gutted that he lost, but Biden isn't just a reskinned Trump. It isn't "he's not Trump" for dumb and superficial reasons. It's "vote for him because his views are much better than Trump and will significantly change people's lives".

[KHCast]

7 minutes ago, Plasme said:

Biden will raise the minimum wage, Trump won't. Biden will lift the Muslim ban, Trump won't. Trump believes climate change is made up and will contribute to the destruction of the planet, Biden doesn't

1. Minimum wage raise isn't a fix to the long term issues at hand. Also not even confident Biden will see that through. Especially given he was the VP for mr. “Look at all these promises I didn’t see through”

2. Biden’s interest in climate change is skin deep since he still harbors a defensive pro-corporate/capitalist agenda. The dude claims it’s a topic that can wait that won’t immediately fuck us so we can focus on other issues for now 

 

Ultimately sounds like that faith in Biden is based on guesses and assumptions. Nothing concrete 

 

It's "vote for him because his views are much better than Trump and will significantly change people's lives".

*looks at Biden’s history*
 

L.O.L

 

[Winston]

49 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Especially given he was the VP for mr. “Look at all these promises I didn’t see through”
 

For that line, I want to say something. How many politicians do you know that actually get everything they push out to do done? Obama ran on fixing healthcare among many things, and he did all that he could at the time. It wasn't great, and most people agree with Obamacare not being the best. But do you remember how every single Republican ran on getting rid of Obamacare? Every single one, yet it's still here after a decade. Paul Ryan literally told people there was no hope in getting rid of it in the foreseeable future. 

Another thing, it'd be great to get the things Bernie proposes in America. I'm sure most people would agree with you. But do you legitimately believe most of the things he said was going to happen? The Senate is not going to allow him to radically change healthcare like that, regardless of his party or if it's the right thing. Even if every Democrat voted for it, I really don't see any Republicans budging on it at all, and they're the majority currently. It could radically change in 2020, I don't know, but polls are showing that it slightly favors Democrats in regaining control of the Senate, and I really do not believe every Democrat would vote for all of Bernie's policies. 

It's great that Bernie was proposing all this amazing stuff. He seems to genuinely care about getting healthcare to people, fixing the environment, and more. This is not something that can change in so little time though. This is years and years of work that is still ahead, sadly. I would say the things that Plasme said for Biden have far more of a chance of happening than a lot of the things that Bernie had proposed. I mean, I don't know for sure. Nobody knows for sure. Bernie could have gotten in and got everything done. But these people are politicians. They say things to garner support regardless of if it's possible or not. They openly know a lot of what they are saying has a very good chance of not happening, but it gets people to vote for them. Do you think Trump legitimately thought Mexico was going to pay for the wall? Of course not, but it worked as a message for his base. Not saying Bernie is only saying things to work as a message for his base, I genuinely believe he wants to make change. It still stands that he is a politician and will say things he thinks will boost him in the polls above anything else though, regardless of if he thinks it will be legitimately possible if he is President. 

 A lot of people don't like Biden, it's true. I'm not a huge fan of him myself. He does have a shit record. You can vote or not. It's up to you completely, but acting like Biden has no chance of getting things done compared to Bernie is somewhat laughable.  It was unfair what the Democrats were doing to Bernie, I agree fully. It's corrupt and wrong for them to push for one candidate over the other, but let's not pretend that Biden did not have a solid shot at the nomination. He was a popular Vice President, and Obama is still popular with Democrats and moderates. People look at the relation between the two and vote, regardless of Biden's record. A lot of people voting in the primaries liked Biden's message of getting things back to "normal", and he even outdid Hillary in states that she won in 2016 by quite a lot. 

The point is, it takes years for change to actually happen. Racism is still rampant in America even after the abolition of slavery and the Civil Rights Act. Abortion is still an issue even decades after Roe v. Wade. It takes a very, very long time for things to actually happen. The fact that Biden has changed some of his stances to better suit Bernie supporters is proof that what Bernie is pushing for is making a difference, and will continue to develop for years to come. It's depressing, I know, but it's just how politics work. It would be nice if we had more than two choices in Presidential elections, it would be nice if the electoral college was updated/removed depending on your stance, but these things take time. Regardless of if Bernie won or not, there would be very little chance that what he pushed for would actually get done. Do you think how Obamacare ended up was Obama's intention? Absolutely not, but it was the only way he was going to get it done. I really don't see how Bernie was going to change this country to a national healthcare system ten years later without making major sacrifices.  

You can sit out this election if you really want to, but I always emphasize the importance of the right to vote. Even if you don't want to vote for a Presidential candidate running, voting for a Senator or Congressman that you believe best represents you is just as important because these are the people that either reject or agree to the bills that are being presented to them. Get people in there that align with Bernie. We'll get to that change one day. 

[KHCast]

On 5/3/2020 at 2:02 AM, KHCast said:

Call it a waste, but I’m just fucking writing in a name this time.

 

It’s almost like I did say that’s what I was gonna do.

 

Quote

 But do you remember how every single Republican ran on getting rid of Obamacare? Every single one, yet it's still here after a decade. Paul Ryan literally told people there was no hope in getting rid of it in the foreseeable future.

 

 

 

It’s hilarious you mention this, when I literally said Democrats at this point need to essentially do this and shoot for taking over the senate so they can crutch Trump. Jesus, people are really just looking at the “he isn’t voting for Biden” thing and running with that.

[Winston]

19 minutes ago, KHCast said:

 

It’s almost like I did say that’s what I was gonna do.

I'm glad you're voting, but I didn't read the other page before posting that. I was just reading the responses on this page. I don't know your entire political plans. 

 

Quote

It’s hilarious you mention this, when I literally said Democrats at this point need to essentially do this and shoot for taking over the senate so they can crutch Trump. Jesus, people are really just looking at the “he isn’t voting for Biden” thing and running with that.

As an example, they are not going to be able to sit on a Supreme Court pick for four years without people getting pissed. People will absolutely vote them out. Sure, it happened to Merrick Garland, but that wasn't even a year. They better hope it happens right before the next election if that's their game plan. And no, I am not taking just the "he isn't voting for Biden" thing and running with it. In my personal opinion, I think it's a bad idea to run on getting rid of something with no idea on how to do it. Sure, Republicans regained control of the House and Senate in 2016, but what did they do with it when they had no idea of what to do? Not much. 

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Winston

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On 5/4/2020 at 3:20 AM, KHCast said:

Ultimately sounds like that faith in Biden is based on guesses and assumptions. Nothing concrete 

You’re gonna have to pick your poison: it’s either Biden or Trump.

And if you don’t pick, someone else’ll pick for you whether you like it or not.

At the very least, you’ll have even more power to complain about it when you make a choice and vote and things go awry. But given that there isn’t much of a third option, at the very least pick the one that will hurt you the least.

[Patticus]

How exactly is McConnell's court packing "speculation boogeymen"? It's an active, ongoing effort to capture the judiciary for at least a generation, in part by pressuring previous Republican picks to retire so young replacements can fill their vacancies for decades, and it's being well documented in the press.

WaPo: "One in four circuit court judges is a Trump (read: McConnell) appointee."

Quote

Trump nominees make up 1 in 4 U.S. circuit court judges. Two of his picks sit on the Supreme Court. And this past week, as the House voted to impeach the president, the Republican-led Senate confirmed an additional 13 district court judges.

In total, Trump has installed 187 judges to the federal bench.

The 13 circuit courts are the second most powerful in the nation, serving as a last stop for appeals on lower court rulings, unless the case is taken up by the Supreme Court. So far, Trump has appointed 50 judges to circuit court benches. Comparatively, by this point in President Obama’s first term, he had confirmed 25. At the end of his eight years, he had appointed 55 circuit judges.

Trump’s appointments have flipped three circuit courts to majority GOP-appointed judges, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York. The president has also selected younger conservatives for these lifetime appointments, ensuring his impact is felt for many years.

The executor of this aggressive push is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is almost singularly focused on reshaping the federal judiciary, twice ramming through Senate rule changes to speed up confirmations over Democrats’ objections.

Circuit Court judges are lifetime appointments, in case anybody didn't know.

Economist: "Donald Trump (again, read: Mitch McConnell) is appointing judges at a blistering pace."

Quote

In a little over three years, Mr Trump has nominated and won Senate confirmation for 192 federal judges, including 137 district-court judges, 51 appellate judges and two Supreme Court justices.

No president since at least Ronald Reagan has racked up judicial appointments so quickly (the closest was Bill Clinton with 189 at this point in his presidency). By the end of the year, on current trends, a quarter of federal judges will be Mr Trump’s appointees. They may prove his most enduring legacy.

 

Vanity Fair: "Mitch McConnell pressures judges to retire so Trump can appoint their replacements."

Quote

The New York Times reports that the Senate Majority Leader has started to personally reach out to federal judges appointed by past Republican presidents to pressure their retirement while Trump is still in office. McConnell has been contacting judges to “sound them out on their plans and assure them that they would have a worthy successor if they gave up their seats soon,” the Times reports, aided by other Republicans who are making similar overtures of their own. Republicans are reminding the federal judges that retiring now would be “advantageous,” the Times notes, given that a Democratic win in 2020 could see the end of conservative judicial appointments until 2029.

“Senator McConnell knows he can’t achieve any of his extreme goals legislatively, so he continues to attempt to pull America to the far right by packing the courts,” Schumer said in a statement responding to the Times report, while Brian Fallon, executive director of the progressive judicial group Demand Justice, told the Times McConnell's “hand-in-glove coordination shows how utterly politicized the judicial branch is.”

 

New York Magazine: "Anti-Abortion Activist Is Trump’s Latest Unqualified Judicial Nominee"

Quote

It used to be generally understood that anyone expecting to obtain a lifetime judicial appointment had to get a minimal stamp of approval from the American Bar Association via a “qualified” rating. In eight years, Barack Obama did not move forward with a single nominee that was rated as “not qualified” by the ABA. In two and a half years, Trump has nominated five such judges. The fifth, Sarah Pitlyk, nominated for a district court position in Missouri, is impossible to understand as anything other than an ideological payoff to the pro-life groups from which she emerged. Yet the Senate is poised to confirm her this week as a trial judge, as Lithwick notes:

Quote

Pitlyk hasn’t generated much attention, despite the fact that she too has no trial experience whatsoever, which is what earned her the ABA’s not-qualified rating. “Ms. Pitlyk has never tried a case as lead or co-counsel, whether civil or criminal. She has never examined a witness,” the ABA said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee …

Pitlyk’s primary legal work has consisted of attacks on abortion rights, tempered by attacks on constitutionally protected contraception rights, leavened by other attacks on abortion, and supported with her work defending David Daleiden — the author of a vicious smear campaign against Planned Parenthood, based on fake videos of Planned Parenthood officials appearing to negotiate the sale of aborted fetal body parts. These are all claims that were later debunked by a Republican-led House Oversight Committee. Criminal charges were brought against Daleiden. Yet Pitlyk’s biography proudly notes that she was “part of a team defending undercover journalists against civil lawsuits and criminal charges resulting from an investigation of illegal fetal tissue trafficking.” In last year’s Box v. Planned Parenthood, Pitlyk made the transparently false argument in an amicus brief that abortion and birth control are based in the eugenics movement and urged that: “The eugenic origins of the birth-control movement — the progenitor of the abortion rights movement — are well-established.”

 

It is impossible to see the ongoing packing of the courts as anything other than a concerted partisan push by McConnell to move the Overton Window further and further to the right. This serves to entrench gains made in the accumulation and consolidation of wealth and power by the billionaire class over the last few years. It also serves to protect conservative wins (Citizen's United, etc.) from legal challenges, and reward their wealthy backers by finally making it possible for them to launch legal challenges to kill well established progressive legal precedents, like Roe v Wade (the power of which has already withered greatly on the vine lately), workers' rights, environmental protections, or, well, pretty much every progressive gain made since Theodore Roosevelt established the National Parks system, and set precedents of their own that will themselves need to be overturned before we can even begin to repair the damage done.

The ultimate aim of all this is, to my mind, to provide legal cover for their pet project of "saving capitalism from democracy," and turning the US into a series of neo-feudal quasi-theocratic corporate fiefdoms ("wE'rE nOt a DeMoCrAcY, wE'rE a rEpUblIc" the apologists cry). But, I'm sure if they can't quite manage that, that they'll settle for dominating American so-called "justice" for the rest of our lives, continuing to stunt the country's societal development for many decades to come, as the world moves further and further ahead.

 

And, by the by, if you have a choice between a fascist would-be tyrant, and a less shitty but still shitty alternative, and going-nowhere third parties or write-ins, the pro move is to vote for the less shitty alternative (thanks, Democratic primary voters, y'all really suck ass). It's cool to vomit all up your car afterwards, as long as you vote for the central opposition candidate to the fascist. If you don't, you're making a conscious choice to not oppose fascism - there is no integrity in that. Until a system of actually representative democracy can be established in the US, via ranked choice voting, ending the two party hegemonic control of the political system, ending the Electoral College, this is how it has to be. So let's prioritize maintaining our ability to do those things going forward by voting for Biden, or, if the virus takes him, whomever takes his place, because there's no guarantee we'll get another shot like this.

 

I strongly expect Trump, his allies, and his followers, to soon adopt the language of new Hungarian dictator, Viktor Orban:

Quote

“Christian democracy is not liberal...It is illiberal, if you like,” Orban said.

Unlike liberal democracy, he said, Christian democracy rejects multiculturalism and immigration while being anti-communist and standing for Christian values.

“We are facing a big moment: we are saying goodbye not simply to liberal democracy ... but to the 1968 elite,” he said, alluding to an international wave of leftist, liberal protest that upended the ruling conservative order in many countries.

Source.

[Tornado]

As I sit here and look at a member on Era get banned for wondering aloud how the staff is going to handle people talking about favoring Joe Biden over Trump once election season actually starts and also keep consistent with their previous history of ripping anyone apart who even tries to defend anyone like Joe Biden, I have to also wonder aloud how such things will happen. Because election season hasn't really started yet, and most people have more important things on their plates right now, so everyone is generally just ignoring Joe Biden.

 

 

 

 

How will the echo chambers, not just Era but places like Gizmodo too, correlate their desire to vote Trump out of office above all else with their longstanding fanatical desire to publicly destroy people who are even remotely like Joe Biden? How will these places keep from banning everyone who use the sites? The dumb motherfucker said real black people wouldn't even think of voting for anyone but him. He said that ON RECORDED VIDEO THIS MORNING.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

The guy has no tact, huh?

Says a lot his only saving grace is that he isn’t Trump. 

[Dr. Mechano]

NPR: Trump Signs Executive Order To Weaken Social Media Companies

So, uh, what legal ramifications - if any - does this actually have?

Is the president trying to say privately-owned websites aren't allowed to set their own terms of service and must allow all user-posted content? What does this actually mean?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Considering that would violate the First Amendment, absolutely none.

And Trump of all people should know that given he readily takes advantage of the First on a frequent basis using Twitter. He’s lucky they didn’t just delete his posts, which if he keeps this shit up I wouldn’t put it past them.

Also, notice how quick he was to sign an executive order for this within a day, but waited months to deal with the current pandemic...

[Patticus]

CNN's ground team in Minneapolis was arrested on live TV without explanation.

If this isn't punished harshly, to make the police nationwide afraid to do anything like this again, I fear it won't be long before other police departments start doing the same (looking at you, NYPD & LAPD), and then we find journalists being disappeared.

Trump's threatening to send in the military with the green light to open fire, after quoting a racist police chief who started a race riot in the 1960s (likely a Stephen Miller/Grima Wormtongue "suggestion").

 

Quote

Lindsey Graham abandons the pretense of an independent judiciary
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee seems to scoff at the idea of an independent judiciary, and he's unusually brazen about it.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) appeared on the Trump campaign's official webcast a couple of weeks ago, bragging about his party's success in moving the nation's federal judiciary to the right. "One in four judges in America are Trump appointees," the senator boasted. "Can you imagine four more years of being able to appoint conservative judges?"

Increasingly, the Republican Party is focused on little else. Donald Trump doesn't have much of a platform, and GOP officials rarely talk about the kind of policy measures they hope to pursue after the elections. What Republicans have is a preoccupation with the courts, which they see as a proxy for conservative governance and the conservative agenda.

Yesterday, Graham took an even more brazen step in the same direction.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday urged federal judges who are in their mid-to-late 60s to step aside so that Republicans, increasingly nervous about holding the Senate majority in the November election as they eye President Trump's poll numbers, can fill the vacancies now. Graham made the comments in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Quote

"This is an historic opportunity," Graham said. "We've put over 200 federal judges on the bench.... If you can get four more years, I mean, it would change the judiciary for several generations. So if you're a circuit judge in your mid-60s, late 60s, you can take senior status, now would be a good time to do that, if you want to make sure the judiciary is right of center."

There was some chatter yesterday that the South Carolinian's comments reflected an unstated concern about his party's electoral prospects. It's a fair point: if Graham assumed that Donald Trump was a shoo-in for a second term, and that Republicans will have no trouble maintaining their Senate majority, he may not be quite as eager to see current judges step aside to make room for far-right replacements.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/lindsey-graham-abandons-pretense-independent-judiciary-n1217716

Remember all the harping from Republicans about Democrats appointing "activist judges" who "legislate from the bench"? Pure projection.

If we don't end the GOP's reign in November we will lose all hope of making any meaningful societal progress this side of the 2070s. That is, unless there can be a mass impeachment or invalidation of Trump/McConnell judicial appointees - though the requirements to see that through are high indeed. We're already backsliding to before the 1960s on the civil rights front.

Voting Biden is the only option.

Meanwhile, Republican vote rigging:

 

[batson]

And of course people have used the protests as an excuse to loot. Jesus Christ, some people. What the fuck does stealing a TV have to do with fighting racism?

[Patticus]

1 hour ago, batson said:

And of course people have used the protests as an excuse to loot. Jesus Christ, some people. What the fuck does stealing a TV have to do with fighting racism?

It's not about opportunistic greed, it's a routinely downtrodden, oppressed, unheard community, that even now is being stripped of what political voice it has (see the last part of my prior post), reaching the point where violence and destruction - aimed at a society that has consistently betrayed them - are the only recourse.

America could've listened when Kaepernick took a knee, or when Black Lives Matter marched, but it didn't. No, "tHoSe ArEn'T VaLiD FoRmS oF PrOtEsT," it cried, "sToP DiSrEsPeCtInG ThE FlAg aNd OuR VeTeRaNs," "sToP bLoCkInG ThE RoAd," "dOn'T PoLiTiCiZe ThIs sPoRt," "yOu'Re SuPpOsEd To bE A RoLe MoDeL," ad infinitum.

A few weeks spent indoors and white people march with guns into state capitols, foaming at the mouth with rabid anger over the mild inconvenience of doing right by their fellow man during a public health crisis. The black community has endured centuries of continual oppression and injustice, violence and discrimination. It has met these with countless peaceful protests that went unheard, and were maligned - that didn't work.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

- John F. Kennedy

These protests, this violence, the looting and destruction, doesn't come from nowhere. In Minneapolis, as in Ferguson, it has deep roots, that we would do well to understand.

Give this a listen. It's about Ferguson, but can probably be applied to every major city in the country: The L.A. riots in '92 didn't spring forth from nowhere. Philadelphia didn't bomb MOVE in 1985 out of the blue. The 1960s Miami police chief Trump quoted ("When the looting starts, the shooting starts.") wasn't an aberration. The NYPD doesn't have a rock bottom reputation for racism for nothing.

 

[batson]

If people feel that they need to cause destruction to make a point, then they are doing themselves a disservice by also taking the opportunity to steal, because it at the very least makes it look like their violent protest is in part an excuse to get stuff... which it probably often is. I still don't buy the idea of stealing a TV being only a way to say "fuck you" to society. In part, it's almost certainly also because the person in question sees an oppurtunity to get a new TV.

[Tani Coyote]

The emphasis on the looting honestly distracts from the way precincts are being systematically targeted; in some cases the armories have actually been raided and the weapons distributed. These aren't your typical protests and riots. This is storming the Bastille.

Perhaps the comparisons to Weimar Germany aren't entirely off. We have record unemployment. COVID-19 has torn the fabric of life apart and created large numbers of people with nothing to lose.

And as "liberal" mayors and governors largely close ranks around the police, we're quickly seeing both major parties losing legitimacy.

This is going to be an ugly Summer. Amazing how a few days ago the news of the day was the fact the Democratic Presidential candidate shat himself on a livestream.

**

Also, here's my problem with this "We have to beat Trump or else fascism" take, forgive me being late to the party.

This assumes that the moment Trump is gone, we will snap back to normal. I highly doubt it. He changed the Overton Window the same way Sanders did. The next Republican nominee is likely going to be as openly a piece of shit as Trump is.

So that's why I don't buy the "we must vote Biden to stop him" narrative. Because guess what? As soon as he's out, the next Republican will peddle the same bullshit, attract the same base, inflict the same cruelty.

And the Democrats will peddle the same bullshit as well, saying they don't need to stand for anything because they're "so much better" than the monster the Republican Party puts before us.

The left in this country is fed up. We want politicians who we vote for based on who they are, not who they aren't.

Yes, it is a privileged position to do this, because the Democratic politicians don't do as much damage as the Republicans. But in rational choice, there is this concept called a "time horizon." Part of being privileged is you can have a longer one. You can afford to take a loss now to try and secure a gain down the line.

And I want a Party that's actually promising to tear this socioeconomic system apart. We are the wealthiest country on Earth. There is no reason to have homelessness, starvation, and crippling medical and student debt. There is no reason Jeff Bezos should be the richest man on Earth yet guilt us into funding his employees' health plans, or his contractor's tips, while his rich Lex Luthor knockoff ass robs our society blind by using the USPS to avoid giving his employees benefits.

Your typical Democrat makes things a little more tolerable, absolutely. But a few more minorities in power, a few more body cameras on cops, a few less children in cages... it's not really solving the underlying problem now is it?

Now, what I do think we should all do is turn out to support Democrats in the House and Senate. It is hard for independents to succeed in this country, and until that is fixed, it is absolutely a good idea to check the power of the President with a coherent opposition.

We just gotta remember that we can definitely do better than that same opposition going forward. Primary the rotting corpses that we call incumbents. Demand independent redistricting. Give your signature to ranked choice ballot initiatives.

Also, while we're talking Democrats, a relevant topic on this theme of protests. Keep in mind your typical liberal politician who gives police brutality protests their moral support, will sooner take your guns away than the police's.

We can do better. There is fertile ground for lasting socioeconomic reform in this country, but it requires dissolving this cartel these "separate" parties have created for themselves by partitioning almost every district in this country into an uncompetitive safe seat.

tl;dr: Here's food for thought. We're so terrified of this autocracy that Trump will surely be able to impose even if his party loses control of a Congress which apparently doesn't exist. Yet here's the funny thing about autocracies: they tend to endure specifically because they can always point to a "greater evil" in their society. And if you challenge them in any way, expect them to do better, you are just really siding with the greater evil. Sound familiar?

[Dark Qiviut]

Since entering the race last summer, Amy McGrath has been the Senate's personal pick to win Kentucky from Mitch McConnell. A conservative Democrat who considers herself a pro-Trump Democrat and immediately flip-flopped on voting for and then against Kavanaugh, she would allegedly fit right into the mold of other corporate Democrats that parade the US Senate.

But one person who entered the race early in the year has begun to pick up some serious steam and can win the primary and general: Charles Booker. A progressive from Louisville, he is campaigning for Medicare for All, Green New Deal, criminal justice reform, doesn't take corporate PAC dough, and supports a whole host of progressive ideals that have bled into American politics. As people protest in Kentucky, he has participated in them and helped them when needed. This evening, popular radio host Matt Jones (who considered a Senate run himself after McGrath kicked him off the air) announced his endorsement of Booker.

I really believe Booker can win the primary and beat McConnell. Go get 'em!