The General US Politics Thread

If the bar really has gotten that low we are well and truly fucked.

x5 I'm sorry.

Edited by megaeliz on Feb 20th 2019 at 3:47:31 PM

I believe Amy Klobuchar is the "moderate" candidate right now, she does have a record of across-the-aisle work.

As for moderate Republicans ... given that nowadays many voters are motivated by their dislike of the other party rather than support for their own, they'll vote for Trump and the Republicans in Congress if the Democratic candidate is a firebreather, whereas they'll sit out if the Democrat is more milquetoast.

Not to be glib, but I hear Klobuchar's across-the-aisle record only extends to about as far as she can throw a mid-sized stapler. I'd still vote for her over Trump if she makes it to the national stage, but I hope she doesn't.

Edited by RedSavant on Feb 20th 2019 at 5:29:23 AM

I wholeheartedly agree with this part, which is why, at least in the foreseeable future (the remainder of the 21st century really) I consider economic justice to be a lost cause; averting catastrophic climate change is going to demand considerable sacrifice, and the nature of a capitalist hierarchy ensures the people called upon to make those sacrifices won't be the executives and financiers at the top of said hierarchy.


But those necessary sacrifices aren't going to be made in the first place if you couple an anti-capitalist agenda with climate change mitigation efforts, because then you don't just have the oil lobby trying to stop you, you have the entire private sector against you.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 20th 2019 at 7:06:29 AM

Yeah I'd rather not just let Bezos run the world.

Capsase, I think this line of discussion - aside from suffering from the lack of supporting evidence - is stretching the scope of this thread a lot. Probably better to return to politics discussion.

An interesting piece about Elizabeth Warren. Basically, she has done the most legwork in coming up and explaining policies in detail and also has experience in getting them enacted (the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), so her policy concepts could have outsized influence on the campaign.

Besides, with a couple of exceptions most of the policy proposals look good.

I'm generally inclined to believe solving the issues of environmental catastrophe and social justice are actually problems that can be solved together rather than separately.

At least in the sense that it's equivalent to not choosing to save your children from a burning house or your possessions but the fact that building a new house for your children as it's already on fire.

Considering that over 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions is the result of about a hundred global corporations going about their everyday activity some level of an anti-capitalist program will be absolutely necessary to combat climate change.

If you are just going to accept that the Capitalist hierarchy is completely immutable then you are more or less accepting that climate change will proceed and that the deaths it will cause are inevitable, and I’m sure you know that it won’t be the Capitalist who suffer when the time comes.

Yes, when the world collapses due to climate change, it won't be the super rich who suffer first and foremost. They will be lounging around in bunkers or secluded resorts sipping finely aged whiskey and wine.

Heres how you sell the GND (or, as it used to be called, Sustainable Economic Development)- if we do nothing, costs are going up, esp food prices, but ultimately everything. Sacrifices made now reduce those cost increases, so what we are really doing is saving ourselves money in the long run.

"Considering that over 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions is the result of about a hundred global corporations "

Aren't most of these energy companies , including the state owned ones ?

The idea that we should just ignore economic justice and focus on Climate change is hopelessly myopic, did you learn nothing from the Gilets jaunes?

We cannot fight climate change effectively if the average person is apathetic or actively hostile, there are vested interests that will (and have) oppose all efforts to fight climate change and we need people on our side if we're going to succeed. Which means alleviating their economic woes because it's the right thing to do and it's useful.

Demanding sacrifice to fight some amorphous threat in the horizon while refusing to do anything to help people in the here and now is an obviously terrible idea from any perspective that understands basic human psychology.

Yeah from a pure practically perspective if you tell people that they're going to starve a lot of them are going to be happy to let the world burn.

But that assumes that the common people have a say in things, which if you oppose democracy (with Capsase does) isn't a given.

Even from a non-democratic pov their position makes zero sense, authoritarian governments work hard to keep their people placated such as how Saudi Arabia literally bribes its people or the fact that the PRC's legitimacy relies heavily on the prosperity of their citizens.

So yeah, short of an authoritarian government that has managed to outlaw free will "ignore the people and focus on vaguely defined long term problem" is a terrible idea that is completely self-defeating.

I don't often agree with Capase on these things but those conclusions are not necessarily incompatible.

There was a theory advanced in '83 that I believe was called the "Investment theory of party competition" and effectively said that most elections and especially American ones require so much money now that they have effectively become a fight between different sections of capital. That broke down somewhat in 2016 with Sanders running on mostly small donations and whatever the hell Trump's model was for funding, but if it had been Clinton vs... Jeb!, say, they would have happily lined up their respective coalitions of Wall Street + Silicon Valley techbros vs. big oil etcetera. The broader population can probably have a lot more effect by rioting in that system than they can by voting dutifully for the lesser evil.

Obviously we don't completely live in that world anymore, because people like Jeremy Corbyn, Melenchon and Sanders exist and for all their numerous flaws aren't exactly the pretty faces of international capital, but I imagine the Ito PC fits rather well for the 35-odd years of technocratic neoliberal managerialism we had beforehand.

While the concept of "Antagonistic pleiotropy" - evolution favours traits that are beneficial in early life but harmful in later life as such a trait still leaves time for reproduction while a converse one would not - has been coined in the context of medicine and aging research, it is also useful when discussing environmental policies.

In other words, a competition-based system such as capitalism will invariably favour the short term benefits even when they carry externalities or long-term disadvantages, due to market forces working only on the Here and Now. Add to that the inherent uncertainty of externalities and long term effects.

Thus, one cannot get a reasonable climate change policy done within the realm of free market capitalism, it needs external pushers.

Bernie's 2020 slogan is "Not Me. Us."

That's actually a pretty great slogan, in that I agree with 2/3 of it! And I foresee a wealth of comedy emerging from it over the course of the next two years.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 20th 2019 at 9:51:43 AM

That's really his slogan.

...<facepalm>

Urgh!!!! Hello, this is the US, the land of the individualists.

Yeah, that's always been the main stumbling block to socialism in this country.

I like that slogan, sure the US is individualistic but treating that as some kind of immutable characteristic is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is some comedy potential there (yes Sanders I don't want you) but it doesn't mean the sentiment is bad.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 20th 2019 at 12:12:03 PM

I like individualism, because a minority of 1 is the smallest minority.

I quite like the humble sentiment tbh.

Dunno, comes across a bit...how to put it, egocentric humble brag-y?

"It's not about me! It's about us!"