The General US Politics Thread

While I'm obviously not for bothsiderism, there is some truth to it that not all Trump supporters are Neo-Nazis.

I'd even say the vast majority is not. They are "just" genuinely misinformed or deluded.

Like I said, don't get me wrong, but I think the term Nazi is often applied a bit too arbitrarily. It should be reserved for the worst of the worst, as it devalues the term, otherwise.

Shitheads like Steven Crowder or James Woods are asshole conservatives, but not literal Nazis.

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian

The problem is a lot of those people will go up to bat for the nazis in their ranks.

Pretty much. They may not all be nazis, but they'll side with them when push comes to shove. It's almost Distinction Without a Difference.

Edited by PhysicalStamina on Jun 28th 2020 at 2:27:28 PM

On the topic of negative partisanship, this is a thing that Democrats do as well, even on this forum. I've seen arguments going from "vote for any Dem candidate" to "vote for Biden" with the sole argument being to oust Trump. And while I agree that this is a valid consideration in this case, you cannot deny that this is negative partisanship.

Negative partisanship is also not caring what a candidate believes in, as long as he can beat Trump.

Optimism is a duty.

Have we read the same TV Tropes forum threads? Most people here favoured certain candidates during the primaries.

It was only when the primaries pretty much concluded that people went "Yeah, that's the candidate, so we do have to rally behind him".

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

Er, no. You can certainly deny partisanship, because ousting Trump is an inherent requirement to basically any policy position including the continued function of government and an expectation of lawful behaviour. It's not partisanship to recognise that the only way to get any semblance of functioning and policies beyond enriching the mega-rich and white supremacy requires voting out Trump.

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I mean I guess one could argue that there are still people like Bill Weld or Chris Sununu in the Republican Party and there are people like Tulsi Gabbard and Michael Bloomberg in the Democratic Party.

Which sure, is true, but it is obvious that there is still a major discrepancy between the two parties.

Edited by Forenperser on Jun 28th 2020 at 8:37:04 PM

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian

It is possible to simultaneously hold multiple ideas in one's head. I know, crazy, but hear me out.

1. I would vote for a pile of dead cats wearing a trenchcoat if it meant a chance to get Trump out of office.
2. I have a preference for specific policy positions and thus out of all the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination, I preferred Elizabeth Warren.

These are distinct, but not incompatible thoughts.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

~Redmess "this is a thing that Democrats do as well" doesn't change the fact that the worst of it and the bulk of it comes from the Right.

While I'll readily confess I'm guilty of this, at the same time most of the candidates with a chance of beating Trump believed in most of the same things, anyway, so this seems a moot point. That's why I focused less on what an individual candidate believed and focused more on how well it seemed they could do the job. That's why Warren topped my list, as she was easily the most competent, and I have no issues with Biden, who has prior experience as a VP.

Hasan Minhaj did a whole show recently advocating the introduction of a ranked ballot (Alternative Voting, or AV) in elections, in order to provide more choice.

So, in the theoretical scenario where the Greens or the Socialists ran someone intelligent, you could vote for that person as your first choice, and Biden as your second choice. In the longer run, it would give a sense of how much of an appetite their is for policy positions outside the two main parties, because people could vote third-party as their first choice without risking “throwing their vote away”.

In the short term it would probably make more difference at the House and Senate level than the Presidential level, but I think he’s right that it would be an improvement. (I think it would be an improvement in Canada too, but all parties except for the Liberals oppose it on the basis that it would give the Liberals (as the centrist party) an obvious advantage, being the second choice of most voters on both the left and the right. I just never want to have to hear about “strategic voting” again, and have the smaller parties be able to make their case on policy grounds rather than can-you-win grounds.)

Edited by Galadriel on Jun 28th 2020 at 3:04:46 PM

NVM

Edited by nova92 on Jun 28th 2020 at 12:06:16 PM

It is indeed negative partisanship, but what's wrong with that?

When one side is clearly awful and the other is mediocre at worst (ignoring the exceptions like Cuomo) then partisanship is perfectly reasonable, negative, or otherwise.

Edit: Oh, I missed "negative partisanship is not caring about a candidate believes in". Who exactly has done that? Biden sucks in a number of ways but he does in-fact believe in some good things, especially now that he has shown a willingness to move to the left.

Frankly, that just seems like a strawman.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 28th 2020 at 1:36:06 AM

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

I think an accusation of pure partisanship would require the Democrats to be running someone who embodies many of the same problems as Trump, to the point that it genuinely would make no difference.

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It was never reasonable to expect that someone remotely comparable to Trump would end up being the democratic nominee. There were awful candidates like Bloomberg and Gabbard, but they were never particularly relevant or favored to win. The top contenders were always Biden and Sanders, with Warren briefly being in contention before the primaries started. Even taking in all their flaws, there's no reasonable argument you can make that either of them is on Trump's level. So it isn't as if democrats were prepared to abandon all their values to beat Trump; voting someone who's just as bad as him would defeat the point of beating him in the first place.

Well, there are people who think Biden is no better than Trump, but we all know what their brains are made out of.

Those people are a minority and/or was never going to vote democrat anyway, so I don't pay them much mind.

Two things that I think are worth noting, as much as this thread and internet democrats have promoted the idea of “vote blue no matter who” there’s always been evidence that people won’t follow through. It’s been difficult enough to get some voters behind a reasonable candidate they weren't keen on (Biden), if someone like Gabbard had gotten the nomination we clearly wouldn’t have seen Democrats rally behind her, certainly not this thread.

This is further evidenced by the calls by the state party for the Dem Nebraska senate candidate to drop out after his recent sexual harassment controversy, I’m not aware of anyone pushing for people to vote for him no matter what.

On the family and Trump voters thing, it’s worthwhile to draw a distinction between Trump supporters (who watch a fox and OAN all day and post racist rants on Facebook all the time) and Trump voters (who might be normally diss engaged with politics and news and only think about their vote a couple days before the election when they go “well I’m a Republican, I should vote for the Republican guy”.

Trump supporters aren’t worth reaching out to and for some people it probably wouldn’t be emotionally (or even physically) safe to do so, but Trump voters may well not hold that level of vitriol and hatred that makes it so dangerous to engage them.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

I think for most of us it would be accurate to change "Vote Blue No Matter Who" to "Vote Blue No Matter Who As Long As They Aren't Too Bad", which admittedly is much less catchy

This, in my view, is the difference between our negative partisanship and the hypothetical max level negative partisanship, we generally would vote for the vast majority of Democrats over a Republican but it's not impossible (though it is highly implausible) for a Democratic candidate to be bad enough to dissuade many if not most of us from voting.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

I mean between Bill Weld and Tulsi Gabbard, I'v probably vote for Weld.

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian

Yeah the reality is that it’s “Vote Blue No Matter Who, because really all of the likely candidates here are pretty reasonable people who’d be a great improvement over a Republican”.

If anyone is in Nebraska I’d urge them not to vote for the democrat candidate, maybe write-in one of the other democrats who ran in the primary, or vote libertarian if their candidate is better than Sasse.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

I agree that Democratic candidates seem to be very similar, despite cries of extremism. And they are certainly not as socialist as they could be, compared to European countries, but you still hear people talk like they are practically communists.

Optimism is a duty.

I feel the primaries are where the important matter is handled. Ocasio-Cortez was primaried by a candidate who was a Republican for most of their career and explicitly converted to Democrat to destroy her.

"Blue" can be misleading.

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And Caruso-Cabera was crushed in the primary. Anyone can run in the primaries - the Democratic Party can't stop them, but the people who actually get the nomination are, on the whole, nowhere near as bad the Republican candidates.

Edited by nova92 on Jun 28th 2020 at 2:07:02 AM

So, what do you think happens now, after we found out about Russia placing bounties on US soldiers for Afghan militants to kill?

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