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Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#160701: Dec 6th 2016 at 9:29:48 AM

Think you'd be better going to Canada. As for 2018, a failure in the senate wouldn't be doom, but a failure to gain in the House would.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#160702: Dec 6th 2016 at 9:39:22 AM

[up]I'd love to, but Canada isn't exactly welcoming to immigrants who don't have a PHD. Even if I tried to apply for citizenship, I'd probably just get rejected. In all likelihood, the only way I'd be getting to Canada is as an illegal immigrant, and I'm not sure I want to risk that.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#160703: Dec 6th 2016 at 9:39:38 AM

The bigger problem: using factual evidence to find solutions to problems that actually work has become "elitist". We are doomed if we don't find some way to reverse that.

The other problem is that, even if you DO care about facts and are willing to engage in discomfort to find those facts, you aren't necessarily going to know who to trust if you start with a Socratic position like you probably should ("I don't know anything"). There are some things that might be easier to discover as true - evolution, for example, has the consensus of practically the entire scientific community behind it, as does anthropogenic climate change, so people who have enough sense to trust credentialed experts on things and try to at least understand the basics can be persuaded - but on many other issues it can be difficult to know whose interpretation of the truth is most correct or moral, assuming that the person in question isn't outright lying to you.

That's mostly just an aside though. I don't think anyone here is going to seriously contest that the anti-intellectualism and a false conflation of intellectuals and liberals as "the elite" is an enormous cultural problem that needs to be handled.

Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#160704: Dec 6th 2016 at 9:43:48 AM

Remember, some of the Washington state electors (D) are also pushing for a moderate republican alternative (Kasich would probably fit the bill).

tricksterson Never Trust from Behind you with an icepick Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Never Trust
#160705: Dec 6th 2016 at 9:50:07 AM

[up][up][up]I think he was talking about Minnesota as a whole. Joining Canada is something the Western and Northeast states might also consider if they'd have us. I believe there's a fringe group in Canada that's encouraging that.

ETA: Here btw is the thread I mentioned earlier.

edited 6th Dec '16 9:53:58 AM by tricksterson

Trump delenda est
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#160706: Dec 6th 2016 at 10:02:52 AM

Rather, the EC system has done its actual purpose: handed political control over the country to rural counties because Jefferson thought farmers were Closer to Earth and thus more sensible. Hah.

Jefferson wasn't at the Constitutional Convention. If he was we might never had got a Constitution at all. The EC goes back to the big state-small state divide that preceded the Industry-Agriculture and Free-Slave divides. Back when everyone still clung to some delusion of sovereignty You had places like Connecticut and Rhode Island saying Virginia and Pennsylvania were going to dominate the election process so this was one of those things they hashed out.

Going by this, the EC still doesn't actually it's job right. You take the ten smallest states and have them all vote one way or another and it still wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election.

JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#160707: Dec 6th 2016 at 10:11:48 AM

Akhil Reed Amar, the Yale Law expert who even republicans cite sometimes, says no...it really was about slavery

There are several standard stories that I learned in school, and then there's an emerging story that I find more explanatory. I learned in school that it was a balance between big and small states. But the real divisions in America have never been big and small states; they're between North and South, and between coasts and the center.

The House versus Senate is big versus small state, but from the beginning big states have almost always prevailed in the Electoral College. We've only had three small-state presidents in American history: Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, and Bill Clinton. All of the early presidents came from big states. So that theory isn't particularly explanatory.

Then there's the theory that the framers really didn't believe in democracy. But they put the Constitution to a vote, they created a House of Representatives that was directly elected, they believed in direct election of governors, and there are all sorts of other democratic features in the Constitution. So that theory isn't so explanatory.

There is an idea that democracy doesn't work continentally because there are informational problems. How are people on one part of the continent supposed to know how good someone is on another part of the continent? But once political parties appear on the scene, they have platforms. And ordinary people know what they stand for, and presidential candidates are linked to local slates of politicians. So that problem is solved.

So what's the real answer? In my view, it's slavery. In a direct election system, the South would have lost every time because a huge percentage of its population was slaves, and slaves couldn't vote. But an Electoral College allows states to count slaves, albeit at a discount (the three-fifths clause), and that's what gave the South the inside track in presidential elections. And thus it's no surprise that eight of the first nine presidential races were won by a Virginian. (Virginia was the most populous state at the time, and had a massive slave population that boosted its electoral vote count.)

This pro-slavery compromise was not clear to everyone when the Constitution was adopted, but it was clearly evident to everyone when the Electoral College was amended after the Jefferson-Adams contest of 1796 and 1800. These elections were decided, in large part, by the extra electoral votes created by slavery. Without the 13 extra electoral votes created by Southern slavery, John Adams would've won even in 1800, and every federalist knows that after the election.

And yet when the Constitution is amended, the slavery bias is preserved.

So there you have it. EC was meant to represent the faction of slaveowners and today it represents the faction of revanchists who are bitter about the end of slavery and Jim Crow and Civil Rights.

Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#160708: Dec 6th 2016 at 10:13:01 AM

Reagan was the one who really brought the boomers into the Republican fold, yeah. The youth vote overwhelmingly rejected Trump and he lost the popular vote by a historic margin for an EC winner.

The disaster is that he got in at all and the damage he'll do, not that the trends of the country itself are going to shit, far from it.

JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#160710: Dec 6th 2016 at 10:18:04 AM

The disturbing part of Reagan was that he won the popular vote...twice. Trump didn't. People, smart people, bought into the Reagan cult, whereas that's not the case with Trump...not yet anyway.

Now of course Jimmy Carter was a wash too. I mean he was the guy who started the slide to neoliberalism and he also started talking about faith in campaign, heralding the increasing role evangelicals would play in the election and in a way Reagan can be seen as Competent Carterism, the way Bill Clinton was Competent Reaganism.

nightwyrm_zero Since: Apr, 2010
#160711: Dec 6th 2016 at 10:21:25 AM

So the world can look forward to Competent Trumpism for your next POTUS then....

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#160712: Dec 6th 2016 at 10:25:11 AM

[up][up]Carter was regarded as a DINO as President, as well — Ted Kennedy's insurgent campaign wasn't driven entirely by personal ambition; there was a significant portion of congressional Democrats who wanted Carter out. Firstly, his administration was imploding over stagflation, oil, and the hostage crisis, and secondly, when it wasn't, Carter was viewed as doing the Republicans' job for them.

Carter comes off as a liberal now, but back then, he was the era's equivalent of a Blue Dog.

edited 6th Dec '16 10:25:54 AM by CrimsonZephyr

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#160714: Dec 6th 2016 at 10:37:45 AM

Most likely...it would need someone who is as much a master of mass media and soundbites as Trump is, as slick in putdowns and insults...the joke about Jon Stewart, or Kanye West, being President might not be funny anymore.

Remember Reagan held political office and had a mediocre career as an actor, his first wife, Jane Wyman was far better known than he was, winning an Oscar and headlining commercially successful films like All That Heaven Allows which Reagan never did. He was better known as a fifth-columnist Union President of the Screen Actor's Guild and then as Governor of California. He did bring the spectacle to modern politics but he backed the spectacle with time spent in political office. And even then JFK did that, with the TV debates, and largely got to power by the promise and photogenic quality of himself, his wife and his retinue...looking young and handsome and all that. After JFK and Reagan, you had politicians trying to be actors...and even Obama was not free of that. He's often compared to a stand-up comedian and you can see him try and channel some of that in his rhetoric.

Trump is the next level. Globally you see many entertainers and spectacle-impressarios becoming President. Italy was at the forefront of that. Silvio Berlusconi, and now the guy in charge of Movimento 5 Stelle is a comedian.

Now of course this could just be a temporary blip...it's often tempting to mistake minor shifts as the next big thing, and historians are guilty of that. But it can happen.

pwiegle Cape Malleum Majorem from Nowhere Special Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Singularity
Cape Malleum Majorem
#160715: Dec 6th 2016 at 10:44:38 AM

[up][up]Don't you already have a Canadian address?

Santa Claus, The North Pole, Canada, H0H 0H0

edited 6th Dec '16 10:45:00 AM by pwiegle

This Space Intentionally Left Blank.
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#160716: Dec 6th 2016 at 10:46:36 AM

This is precipitated since the "Trump era" has only just begun, but I do wonder what "competent Trumpism" actually would be and what it would resemble. Since one of Trump's defining characteristics is that he's incompetent, given that he's never held political office.

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#160717: Dec 6th 2016 at 10:52:01 AM

Akhil Reed Amar, the Yale Law expert who even republicans cite sometimes, says no...it really was about slavery.

I don't see how having Republicans cite him is supposed to make me take him more seriously. Calling the EC just a product of slavery is even more a simplistic falsehood than the high school history lessons he's supposedly debunking.

That thing about presidents coming mostly from big states therefore the Big-Small Divide is untrue doesn't even make sense. It's never been about where the president was from, but how much each state had a say in the election.

How much faith the Founders had in democratic institutions is an argument that could go on for days. But this is another simplistic generalization he's using to further his argument. You could never find two Founders who agreed on everything, much less how democratic the nation was supposed to be. But in this very thread we've established multiple times that many of the early leaders mistrusted large scale democratic institutions. Heck, the most pro-democratic of the Founding Fathers weren't even at the Constitutional Convention.

Political parties weren't a thing when the EC was established. Now he's just getting his timeline wrong.

That slavery played a role in it's creation, like it did in everything about our early government, I'm not denying. But other, and often greater, factors are at play here. To pretend otherwise is just presenting a warped view of history.

JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#160719: Dec 6th 2016 at 11:13:13 AM

These two statements are contradictions

Calling the EC just a product of slavery is even more a simplistic falsehood than the high school history lessons he's supposedly debunking. ... That slavery played a role in it's creation, like it did in everything about our early government, I'm not denying.

Calling it "simplistic falsehood" and then saying it played a part in it's creation. These two assertions are incompatible. Pick one.

RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#160720: Dec 6th 2016 at 11:21:37 AM

@Julian: Saying that slavery impacted the EC and saying that it was the only factor for its creation, however, is in fact two different things.

It's been fun.
Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#160721: Dec 6th 2016 at 11:24:20 AM

[up]But, as factors go... it was a whopping, great big, Moby Dick-sized one. :/

Sure, it counts as "a single factor" among several. But... Moby Dick vs a lot of salmon, cod and the odd seal. Large salmon, I'll grant you. But...

edited 6th Dec '16 11:36:41 AM by Euodiachloris

JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#160722: Dec 6th 2016 at 11:36:36 AM

The EC may not have been intended specifically to favor slave states but practically that's how it all worked out, with the 3/5ths rule and everything. That's what Mr. Amar was getting at. Remember it's an interview and not a long think piece. He is summarizing and telescoping his arguments to essential details. And in turn that got edited down further for the Vox platform. Getting the South to support the Union led many to compromise on slavery...Jefferson himself removed an article condemning the slave trade in the Declaration when many people in the room objected to it. And the whole idea of defending the states from a strong central government, was specifically about upholding "state's rights to oppress people".The word "State's Rights" is dog-whistle for slavery/racism and little else.

Now personally speaking, I don't think it matters a great deal what the Founders thought and meant. I believe that we should see Lincoln and the American Civil War as the Second American Revolution, and agree with Lincoln that it gave "a new birth of freedom". I personally consider Lincoln to be a superior politician, greater intellectual and of course, superior human being...to Jefferson/Paine/Hamilton and a greater war leader than George Washington. The founders, individually and collectively put together, can't hold a candle to him. America is about building a "more perfect union" and about changing and going forward.

Amar is a guy who believes Constitutional Orginalism cuts both ways while the likes of Scalia believed that it meant preserving America exactly the way the Founders intended it. The latter is plainly insupportable because of technological/sociological/demographical change and it could lead to one day taking away the right of women to vote because that damn sure wasn't originally in the constitution either.

RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#160723: Dec 6th 2016 at 11:43:26 AM

@Euo: Yeah, I'm of the same opinion myself. Just wanted to point out that Parable said that the EC as 'just a product of slavery', as in a product of slavery alone, is too simplistic a view. There's no incompatibility in what he said.

It's been fun.
BonsaiForest Since: Jan, 2001
#160724: Dec 6th 2016 at 12:31:21 PM

Anyone here wonder if, at some point, the victim of some dumb conspiracy theory will eventually sue for slander, creating a precedent for others to do the same?

Look at the pizzagate nonsense. Whackos believe that a pizza restaurant secretly hides child abuse. One guy goes there with an assault rifle, finds nothing, and is arrested. Now the conspiracy sites claim he was a government plant (since he's a Z-list actor on the IMDB).

If a lawsuit is filed by the pizza place, it could of course increase the harassment tremendously in the short term ("Why are you trying to take away our freedom of speech, you commie?!"), but there needs to be consequences to pulling things out of one's ass and using them against others. Things have gotten bad, real bad, with internet harassment commonplace and conspiracy bullshit and fake news. Lawsuits need to fly.

Maybe Trump's plan to loosen up slander/libel laws may yield some positive fruit.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#160725: Dec 6th 2016 at 12:40:28 PM

You'd need to specifically sue a person, that's hard to do online due to anonymity, it's especially hard with Reddit, as the engineers with database access can edit posts without leaving a trace. So good lucking proving that a person's Reddit post was made by them.

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

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