The General US Politics Thread

How far is the Earth's core?

And is it possible to go lower than that without going up?

Here comes a new challenger!

House Armed Services chairman denies $1 billion transfer for Trump wall

heh,watch the billion shrink to half the number,they're going to give him less and less each time,classic wear him down tactic

The Mueller report was never going to sink Trump, because if it were, Trump would have been indicted. The media over-simplifies and over-blows everything. This is a mildly positive outcome for Trump, but it is unlikely to change anyone's vote. Right now the odds of Trump getting re-elected are about 50-50. The most important factor will be what the economy does, as it always is.

A more important issue, in my opinion, are the people pointing to the lack of evidence for collusion and using that to justify ignoring the continuing risk of foreign information operations and their potential for influencing the next election, not to mention the polarizing effect on our political culture. The danger is very well documented, but the problem is that the Republicans see themselves as the beneficiaries of interference, so they have a strong incentive to ignore it or deny it.

I agree strongly with the first part but I don't really agree with Trump's odds, he certainly has a very real chance of winning. But he had a 30% chance of beating Hillary, I don't really see any reason to believe that has improved. The fact he won't face a candidate as flawed as she was implies that his odds in practice may be even worse in 2020.

Furthermore, I think you're being far too focused on the economy. Does it matter? Certainly, but it hasn't stopped Trump from being historically unpopular.

I'm not saying that Trump can't win, but I don't think 50-50 odds are quite accurate.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Mar 26th 2019 at 11:50:03 AM

Trump now has to run on a record, and people know that he's capable of winning (so that won't depress turnout at least).

And him opening up the Healthcare file again is a very good thing for the Democrats, politically.

I dont insist on the odds I offered, but I do believe that the economy doing as well as it has is the only thing keeping Trump's approval rating from sinking even lower.

Trump also has the incumbent advantage now, which he didn't have in 2016. Apathetic voters who don't follow the news may well vote for him because "He hasn't burned the country down yet, right?"

I don't expect the Mueller Report to have much if any impact on 2020. Voters have a short attention span and Election Day is a year and a half away.

I think that the biggest risk the report poses (barring the full report coming out and being totally different from Barr's summary) is that this legitimizes Trump's Presidency. Trump may feel encouraged to take bold new steps in the field of terribleness now that he's "100% Officially And Truly Democratically-Elected President of the United States For Realsies".

Meanwhile, we may also see a shift in how the media reports on him, with the narrative turning away from Russian Invader Who Threatens Our Democracy and towards Real Official President Normal Guy Who Does Very Normal President Things.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 26th 2019 at 1:11:02 PM

Bold new steps like renewing the fight against the ACA.

Exactly like that.

Like. Y'all heard the man. He says the report exonerates him. It doesn't, but he thinks it does and he's going to behave with that in mind. Trump's pretty confident that the Sword of Damocles is no longer hanging over his head, and he is now free to President however his heart wishes.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 26th 2019 at 1:12:09 PM

I'll give Trump a 20% chance of being re-elected. He can win, but it's not overly likely.

Yeah, and he had a 30% chance of winning in 2016.

For f*ck's sake, can we please stop treating Trump like a joke candidate that will never make it to the White House because no one in the United States would ever vote for him? It's been two years.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 26th 2019 at 1:17:05 PM

Sure, that's part of the reason I think he has a chance. But if anyone could be a one term President it could be Trump.

This is a strawman, absolutely no one is doing this.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Mar 26th 2019 at 12:17:47 PM

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump still has overall the same chances of winning as he did in 2016, because the positive for him (incumbency and low attention span and voter apathy) are counter balanced by the negatives (he's always doing something stupid, and people who thought he could never win now understand different).

Which is another way of saying "yeah, he probably won't win, but we said that last time too so be vigilant."

A 30% or a 20% chance of winning is not a trivially low chance.

At this current moment in time, I'd say the election is looking like Trump's to lose. As Nate Silver and others have pointed out, Trump can campaign as an incumbent, with a good economy, no wars, no collusion, and anti-socialism.

For a certain definition of "good," "wars," "collusion," and "socialism," of course. But for a lot of dummies, that will be good enough.

Yet he could fuck everything up because he is still a greedy racist idiot.

Edited by Eschaton on Mar 26th 2019 at 12:29:02 PM

I will be incredibly depressed if the economy is the reason the non-deplorables vote for Trump again, because it's basically sending the signal that all we Americans care about is money. Like, yeah, he hasn't run the economy into the ground (YET- there's the possibility that he's running things too hot which could lead to a recession later) but that shouldn't automatically trump (sorry) all the bad stuff he's done.

To be fair, when it comes to politics, money is actually fairly important-a lot of what people do is to acquire money, or is effected by it.

Plus, it's also something that can be measured.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't really care about much else besides their immediate financial situation and family/friends. As long as those aspects are fine they don't really care about what's going on with the rest of the country, much less the world proper.

That being said there is a still a lot of time before 2020. There's plenty Donald could do to bungle his chances in the meantime.

Didn't Trumps decisions hit some of the red states the worst? The whole trade war didn't do a lot of farmers any favours. Then there are the promised tax cuts which lead to people paying more than ever. Than there is the sudden appreciation for Obamacare.

And then there is the Democrats quite successful tactic to get disfranchised voters to the ballot box. they are also currently working on rolling back some of the BS the Republicans implemented to rig the game for themselves.

God, my mom votes like that. She's a "Libertarian" and whenever we discuss politics, she likes to comment that she doesn't support Trump's treatment of minorities, the LGBT, etc. But she sure does love what he's done for her bank account.

I've taken to calling it her "blood money". She doesn't appreciate that.

Except she does. By voting for the guy, she explicitly supports what he's doing.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Mar 26th 2019 at 9:07:04 AM

Sure, that's why Tobias (rightfully) calls it blood money.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Mar 26th 2019 at 1:07:59 AM

I agree entirely.

I've considered breaking off contact with her entirely and telling her that she voted for mothers to be separated from their children so until that stops happening, she gets separated from hers.

Problem with that is that I'm reclusive and only really see her every few months so the effect would be pretty diminished.