The General US Politics Thread

You sort of asked what I was just gonna ask. That being, what is it I can truly do against Trump that can make a difference? The thing is, I'm not sure if I want to protest — not directly anyway — because then I might get shot, and if I get shot, I can't very well keep fighting the good fight, can I? So do I risk taking the bullet, or is there another way to go about fighting the good fight? In way that lets me keep fighting the good fight, preferably.

edited 24th Jan '17 2:59:05 PM by kkhohoho

I don't disagree, but worry about that after electing the candidate more qualified than the incompetent man-baby who can't be trusted with a Twitter account let alone the fate of our nation

edited 24th Jan '17 2:59:11 PM by sgamer82

I wouldn't lean too hard on the "it's going to be a long four years" maxim. We're going to try, but there's no guarantee that this is going to get any better in four years.

edited 24th Jan '17 2:59:38 PM by RBluefish

It'd be nice if we could presidential candidates to a higher standard than 'are they better than Trump', yeah, but unfortunately we're currently in a position where we can't.

@Scifi: I'd suggest that a first step would be finding your allies. Start with the professors, since you mentioned them, and then see how many other students are like-minded.

Hey - the HUD have announced a public comment period for equal housing access for LGBT+ people. If people have opinions, now's the time to let them know. (And if anyone has a script or anything for me, that'd be great, 'cause I'm not even sure what to say.)

Given that Ben Carson is secretary now, I worry about this.

That's a nice gesture, but I don't think Ben Carson is going to approve of this once he's in office, so it's kind of going to be a waste of time.

If he actually does go through with this, then I'd be surprised and slightly happy that at least something good happened under Trump's administration.

In other news: 3 Top GOP Senators refuse to discredit Trump's Voter Fraud Claim, although they don't outright support it either. House Speaker Paul Ryan refutes Trump's lie, however, so that's something...

And Tom Price, Trump's pick for Health Secretary, reveals that Trump does not have a Health Care Alternative to ObamaCare anywhere near ready. Must be why 2 Republican GOP Senators are starting to support the idea of StateCare.

edited 24th Jan '17 3:12:45 PM by DingoWalley1

The problem is that when a politician is constantly surrounded by allegations of this or that people are going to start to think there's fire under the smoke even if nothing is found. People are naturally distrustful of politicians (unless they've sipped their kool-aid), and Hillary being a woman who isn't viewed as particularly "charismatic" doesn't really help her public perception.

So basically when you have several years of scandals, fake or otherwise, you end up with our current situation.

I really do think a lot of the problem was that Hillary doesn't seem to be great at getting people in their feels though. That's really what a lot of the electorate cares about at the end of the day, feeling "inspired", seeing in politicians what they wish they could be, etc.

edited 24th Jan '17 3:18:32 PM by Draghinazzo

Charisma!

GOP: Muh frozen peaches are important you lefty commie scum.

Also GOP: Science on the Internet is verboten and must be punished.

I wish that Thanos were around to chew Trump out: "Your politics bore me! Your demeanour is that of a pouty child."

Our Glorious Leader is expected to sign executive orders on immigration soon.

But tell me again how that was just campaign talk and he'll never follow through on it, Internet.

I wish the Avengers were around to expose him for what he is and save the world.

Either that, or a single underdog-style superhero. Preferably Kamala Khan.

edited 24th Jan '17 3:37:09 PM by RBluefish

He's moving so fast it's insane. Almost like he knows he's gonna get impeached.

@henry42:

• Against single-payer health care (already mentioned this)

And we already addressed this. It's a pipe dream in our current environment. She was for the public option, which could evolve into single-payer over time. Clinton was not opposed to single-payer, but thought it was not achievable, and wanted to advocate a practical alternative.

• Against tuition-free public college

She changed her mind and adopted this as a platform position. But the economics of it were never solidly established, particularly in two key areas — how to stop colleges from inflating tuition in response to increased demand, and the elephant in the room, the siphoning of tuition to fund sports programs.

• For war in Iraq

She changed her mind in response to the evidence that it was a sham. Or would you prefer someone who voted for it and refused to back down on that bad choice?

• For war in Libya

Oookay. I thought we'd agreed that was a justified intervention, at least at the time.

• For escalating involvement in Syria

It'd be nice if we could ignore all that stuff, but you've been toking the peace pipe a bit too long if you seriously believe it.

• For war on drugs

Hillary supported reducing the scheduling of marijuana. Otherwise, this is one of those left-wing positions that is nice to get the potheads on board with your platform, but has precious little economic substance. The main issue with the war on drugs is the systematic incarceration of minorities for minor drug offenses, something she emphatically opposed.

So, again, we have a case of someone holding superficial opinions on complex subjects. The Breitbart crowd loves you to death; keep doing you, bro.

edited 24th Jan '17 3:45:13 PM by Fighteer

The DNC released a statement on the deleted NPS tweets: "Putin would be proud."

Kamala Khan. She's my homie. Single-handedly redeems Joysey.

My primary issue with Clinton was that she and pretty much the entire beltway bubble simply did not seem recognize that functional democracy in the United States has been gradually eroded over the past few decades to an exceedingly dangerous extent until Trump won the election; whatever else you may think of him, Sanders' warnings about encroaching oligarchy seem extremely prescient in light of what actually appears to be happening now.

Beyond that, she lacked any real vision in an election that was blatantly going to be a "change" election once primary season kicked off.

edited 27th Jan '17 7:07:46 AM by CaptainCapsase

@Fighteer

I'd forgotten about Hillary softening her stance on public college and the war on drugs, but overall, I stand by my positions. I don't care to get in an argument about why I believe these things, but my point is that I strongly disagree with Hillary on a number of issues that are very important to me.

Also, I fucking hate Breitbart and its followers, and I wish you'd stop claiming that I have anything in common with them.

Well, yeah. I can't disagree there. The Democratic camp (including Obama) vastly underestimated the degree to which the norms of our political system had been eroded by the right. That doesn't mean their ideas were wrong, though.

You hate them? Then stop doing their work. Stop playing up your disagreements with HRC as if it in any way justifies what was done to her by the left during the election.

edited 24th Jan '17 4:00:43 PM by Fighteer

The thing is, had Clinton been elected, the slide towards oligarchy wouldn't have been halted, it just wouldn't have gone into overdrive like it is now under Trump; Bill Clinton's administration, both Bush administrations, and even the Obama administration were each partially complicit in that trend by virtue of failing to recognize and take action against it.

edited 24th Jan '17 4:05:02 PM by CaptainCapsase

Could they have done something against them?

There's no way of knowing, but there were several points where Clinton, Bush, and Obama each had tremendous political capital and their parties had control over congress, but concerns over the integrity of our political system haven't been all that widespread outside of left wing intelligentsia until now that the problem is staring us in the face.

edited 24th Jan '17 4:11:14 PM by CaptainCapsase

@Fighteer There are plenty of things I'm willing to do in order to fight against the alt-right, but pretending to like Hillary and the establishment Democrats is not one of them.

Honestly, I don't think they even see anything wrong with the country's slide into oligarchy.

edited 24th Jan '17 4:10:11 PM by henry42

Considering the media that's deepest into the beltway bubble has been freaking the fuck out since the election, I don't think they didn't care, they just didn't appreciate the warning signs while in office, or put the problem off for another administration to handle.

Now they've handed infrastructure for a massive domestic spying apparatus that wouldn't seem out of place in China and massively expanded executive power to a egomaniacal conman.

edited 24th Jan '17 4:16:13 PM by CaptainCapsase

I didn't agree with everything Clinton or Obama wanted to do. But I supported them because you have to. Because the alternative is something so much greater in horror that there's no room to let it get a foot in. I already told you why your professed objections to HRC are superficial, and you haven't raised a counterargument. So I am left with the obvious conclusion: your objections are rooted in ideology, not facts.

"Massively expanded executive power"... [citation needed]. Everyone saying this is blatantly ignoring factual measures of the exercise of executive power across administrations. But whatever. Your belief in the "expanding Democratic oligarchy" is the same sort of blind reactionary attitude that ushers in demagogues like Trump.

What I don't understand is why, if you think the Democrats are too aggressive in international affairs, you'd even consider for a moment voting in a way that might allow a Republican to take control. I mean, seriously... The only conclusion I can reach is that you are an accelerationist, because no other ideology explains what happened.

edited 24th Jan '17 4:26:35 PM by Fighteer