The General US Politics Thread

While on paper, the U.S. isn’t a Christian nation, in practice Christianity has influenced far too much policymaking for it not to count.

Though, perhaps ironically, that wasn’t quite so much the case until much later in the country’s life.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Aug 12th 2020 at 6:42:47 AM

If this isn't what a coup attempt looks like, I don't know what is.

Specifically, the US of A was founded as a secular nation because the various Christian states composing it could not agree on a single doctrine of faith between them. Therefore, the claim is bullshit even though it was founded by INTENSELY religious people.

And yes, liars have attempted to ignore the fact a good half of the Founding Fathers were atheists. Some were deists but sometimes people pretend they were when they weren't.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 12th 2020 at 3:47:37 AM

Still not a coup. An attempt to prop up the assholes already in power by making it harder to vote, sure. But that is not a coup. A coup would be something that happens after the election.

It might also backfire, since I have pointed out already that studies show that mail voting does not significantly favor either party.

I am not quite sure what you are referring to.

I do think there's truth in the idea of the U.S. being generally more religiously observant than England or the rest of Western Europe and having more "morality laws", but the lack of a state religion makes it considerably less "Christian" than its European counterparts.

While various states did briefly have their own official religions and needless to say, like Europe, the U.S. has always been very white Christian normative, you definitely wouldn't find things like Washington's letter to the Touro synagogue or Jefferson and various other Founders talking about how Muslims should have the same rights and right to proselytize as Christians among the contemporary leadership in England.

Edited by Hodor2 on Aug 12th 2020 at 5:53:17 AM

Jefferson was a deist and loathed anything supernatural in his writing. So much so that the application of "deist" has often been considered suspect. He was certainly not Christian to any degree.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 12th 2020 at 3:57:12 AM

I didn't know the US had a notable history with Islam. I've never heard of it in any history classes, at least.

The funny thing seems to be that atheism, or at least public disavowing of prominent religious faith, was more acceptable in public figures back in those days. Surely there were folks like the Puritans who just wanted to oppress everyone else in peace, but Thomas Jefferson served as President.

In the 20th century, just like anti-abortion started being a thing and Calvinism got really big (both due to successful right-wing propaganda efforts), a massive distrust of atheism grew in our society. Many people don't know that "under God" was not in the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954.

In this case, however, I wonder if it had less to do with conservatives and more to do with Communism: the militant atheism of the Soviet Union. Then again, being overtly and intolerantly Christian also became part of being Republican not long thereafter as a backlash against peace movements of the sixties and especially against civil rights.

The "moral majority" of Reagan's era and movement conservatism were based on tying vehement religious fervor to "preserving social values" and isolating evangelical Christians into an intellectual bubble; atheism became a symbol of the extreme Left. Even today, mistrust of atheists is one of the most socially acceptable prejudices in the nation.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 12th 2020 at 7:10:13 AM

Barry Goldwater said this about fundamentalists:

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”

Instead, I believe the opposite happened with megachurches being extensions of the GOP.

A little of A, a little of B. Republicans funded megachurches to co-opt evangelical Christians for their party. Then the evangelical Christians took over the party. Kind of obvious in hindsight.

At least part of it was because the first foreign country to recognize the US as an independent country was Morocco.

David Duke regularly speaks in Muslim countries:

• He gets paid a lot of money for his anti-Jewish screeds
• He argues that "over there" is perfectly fine for everyone

Which reminds me of the horrible "Back to Africa" movement for ex-slaves.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 12th 2020 at 4:54:42 AM

@Forenperser "What do you think was the last good Republican President"

I'm too young to have a first-hand answer to that question. I'm only 25 (and therefore, don't recall any presidency before W, though I do recall seeing the announcement of him being elected on the news), though I was rather precocious growing up and identified as conservative in elementary school.

Despite growing up in a very liberal (even left-leaning) community (and being taught frequently by what are vaguely "hippy teachers"), I just sort of gravitated towards conservatism due to my upbringing (I'm an army brat) and perhaps some vague natural inclination. With the latter, I was placed on a 'gifted' program (I was reading A Brief History of Time for fun sometime between 3rd and 5th grade) which probably gave me a bit of an ego problem in hindsight, and I tended to view anything resembling Tall Poppy Syndrome as a threat (and I also daydreamed about being an Uncle Pennybags 'when I invent something big').

That and I became pretty cynical of the left-leaning politically motivated 'hippy' teachers for various reasons. One is that I just got sick of hearing it, the other is that they'd occasionally do things like bothside the American Civil War for a peace aesop (literally, that happened in 5th grade), and I viewed their unwillingness to do anything about issues like bullying as essentially amoral cowardice that I associated with their philosophy.

Anyways, that was a big tangeant that didn't even answer your question! Sorry 'bout that.

Marjorie Greene won Georgia's House Primary as a Republican.

And she's known for a lot of things... Pro-Q, racist, anti-Semetic/Islam.

The Diplomat: Joe Biden's Record on China and Taiwan

TL:DR, Biden was the first Dem to congratulate Tsai, but he has aggressively refused to increase military aid, has outright refused to go to war if Taiwan declares independence, and thought that Lee Teng-hui was too provocative towards China.

He has supported arms deals, but on a basis where the US firmly decides what to give Taiwan, instead of the much more friendly Trump model where Tsai requests material and the GOP happily delivers.

Lastly, Biden's self-describes policy towards Taiwan is "strategic ambiguity" which is that the US will provide military aid to Taiwan but won't clearly commit to supporting it in a war.

Which is why many DPP supporters of Tsai's ruling party prefer Republicans, because "if China invaded and a Republican is president, the Americans WILL help. If a Democrat is President, the Americans MIGHT help".

For someone who boasts about wanting to "strengthen our alliances abroad", Biden not guaranteeing that he's going to help a progressive democracy if it's invaded by a authoritarian dictatorship is kinda being the opposite of a reliable ally.

As a Taiwanese person myself, Dems really need to stop treating Taiwan like an attractive Tinder date who they want to sleep with but aren't willing to commit to a relationship with.

It's frustrating for us for hear your praises of our healthcare system, LGBT rights, female President, freedom of the press, and beautiful scenery, only for you to then refuse to help us defend ourselves from a dictatorship that wants to strip all of that away from us.

And then when our female President has no choice but to raise our defense budget and develop our own weapons to defend everything that makes us such a wonderful vacation spot for you, many of your leaders and supporters accuse us of "needlessly provoking China".

Yeah, it's a bit frustrating for me given that I'm a USA citizen who lives and works in Taiwan and has family here.

I'm still going to vote for Biden and the Democratic Party of course, but this is one particular issue on which I think the GOP has the better stance.

Edited by M84 on Aug 12th 2020 at 10:45:31 PM

The real issue for me is that though the Republicans are certainly willing to mouth off about their support of Taiwan and possibly provide a little bit of aid, are they going to put more than the minimum of their money where their mouths are? Because as the Hong Kong debacle has shown, it turns out that for all their saber-rattling in HK's defense, they were unwilling to actually do anything to help them, and if anything were taking actions that were pro-China anti-Hong Kong under the table. So I don't have much trust for a group as consistently dishonest Republicans to actually do anything in favor of Taiwan either when push comes to shove.

Edited by AlleyOop on Aug 12th 2020 at 10:51:19 AM

For me it's less "will they do it?" and more "will they do it and not somehow fuck it up?"

I have no doubt Trump would fuck it up, because fucking things up is what he does.

Edited by M84 on Aug 12th 2020 at 10:53:23 PM

Well, that's a sentence I'd never expected to hear in this day and age: the Republicans have the better policy.

Okay, let's not get on that "bothsides" crap again.

The GOP is still overwhelmingly worse.

Edited by M84 on Aug 12th 2020 at 10:55:09 PM

I'm not, I'm just surprised that there are policy points where the Republicans have the better policy.

Broken clocks and all that. It's important to note that they wouldn't be doing it for the right reason. They'd be sticking it to China and helping Taiwan would be a side benefit, while Democrats might to the wrong thing for the right reason in that they would be reluctant to engage for fear of other repercussions.

Yeah, we've already seen with Hong Kong that the Republicans' endorsement is not worth all that much.