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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#256851: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:12:57 PM

In general, it is sometimes necessary to put pragmatism before principles. However, there are also limits. And it is deeply, deeply hurtful and traumatic to see people say that women’s trauma doesn’t matter, that all the stories from sexual assault and rape survivors sitting in on Capitol Hill and in Senate offices don’t matter, because Joe Manchin keeping his seat (when he has a decent lead already) is more important than they are. I don’t think you had any bad intentions here, but think about the impact of what you are saying. Think about what message it sends to women and sexual assault survivors.

That the world's a terrible place and unfortunately how people who can't directly affect the outcome feel ends up secondary to creating a scenario where the better option is not an inherent risk. It's a horrible message but at the same time: take the lead as good, take the moral high ground, and land someone universally worse and possibly lose the senate maths.

Probability is callous but it doesn't inherently lie.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#256852: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:13:57 PM

[up][up]This thread is about US politics, not about seeing how fast we can all get ourselves into a deep depression speculating about stuff we aren’t educated enough to productively speculate about.

The Senate is, in fact, broken, and will need to be dealt with eventually because it is heinously undemocratic.

Edited by wisewillow on Oct 5th 2018 at 10:13:45 AM

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#256853: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:14:08 PM

[up]x4 I was largely referring to the House. The Senate was never really in our crosshairs, at least in any meaningful way.

Edited by kkhohoho on Oct 5th 2018 at 9:16:31 AM

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#256854: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:14:35 PM

I'm curious, does anybody think we are heading for a civil war or breakup of the states within the next 30-50 years?

No and bluntly the idea that we are is just asinine and not worth discussing.

Oh really when?
BigMadDraco Since: Mar, 2010 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#256855: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:16:34 PM

@wisewillow I've got 50 bucks that says Kavanaugh drinks himself to death with 10 years.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#256856: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:16:47 PM

Again, I'm in West Virginia and no one cares about Kavanaugh enough not to move a point or not.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#256857: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:16:52 PM

Probability is callous but it doesn't inherently lie.

That level of cynicism is approaching close to sociopathy. I would think the left can be better than that. There are some morals you don't compromise.

Edited by Gaon on Oct 5th 2018 at 7:19:37 AM

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#256858: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:18:37 PM

If you want a better message to take away from it, it's to get Democrat votes in general to not GET this choice.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#256859: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:21:03 PM

Yeah as much as I’m for pragmatism and practicality I couldn’t fault any women in West Virginia if they felt they couldn’t vote for Manchin after this, nor do I want the DNC spending money on him instead of possible gains in states where senators would actully vote against shit like this.

That's also my position. I'm all for long term and being pragmatic, but I can hardly blame anyone for being upset at Manchin. He might be useful down the line but this isn't something you can just live down and it's a bit...insensitive to not consider that this reflects on something personal that people have to live with every day? Whatever your opinion is, at least be understanding.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 5th 2018 at 10:23:47 AM

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#256860: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:25:08 PM

[up][up][up] A lack of empathy is only part of what defines a sociopath, and it's not what makes them "dangerous", rather it's a lack of impulse control that tends to cause problems.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Oct 5th 2018 at 10:27:33 AM

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#256861: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:25:27 PM

Probability is callous but it doesn't inherently lie.

Neither is callousness the same thing as honesty. Victims' feelings should not be dismissed as "secondary" when they are others provide them room to grieve.

nombretomado (Season 1) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#256862: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:25:58 PM

~TheWanted, this is not a thread for despair-exclusive posts. Contribute substantively to discussions moving forward or you will be thumped.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#256863: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:26:06 PM

[up][up][up]...that’s not what Gaon was talking about, though.

Edited by wisewillow on Oct 5th 2018 at 10:28:35 AM

BigMadDraco Since: Mar, 2010 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#256864: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:26:37 PM

6*[up]Pretty much. If we'd won just one more senate election back in 2016 this vote would be dead in the water because Murkowski would have made the same choice and Manchin would have voted no because he wants to be on the winning side of this vote.

Edited by BigMadDraco on Oct 5th 2018 at 7:26:34 AM

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#256865: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:29:16 PM

Neither is callousness the same thing as honesty. Victims' feelings should not be dismissed as "secondary" when they are others provide them room to grieve.

Bare probabilities are both if you have enough samples.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#256866: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:34:06 PM

[up]Dude, just stop this already. To say that you're being insensitive is putting it mildly.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#256867: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:37:57 PM

@wisewillow: Yes, but the sort of nihilistic pragmatism he's railing against is more or less the opposite of sociopathy in all regards other than empathy. My objection to that sort of approach is that human beings, being irrational and emotional, can't even hope to conduct such a cold utilitarian calculus in a detached and impartial fashion, which negates the point of attempting to do so in the first place.

SciFiSlasher from Absolutely none of your business. Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
#256868: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:42:29 PM

A leading Holocaust historian just seriously compared the US to Nazi Germany.

Usually, comparisons between Donald Trump’s America and Nazi Germany come from cranks and internet trolls. But a new essay in the New York Review of Books pointing out “troubling similarities” between the 1930s and today is different: It’s written by Christopher Browning, one of America’s most eminent and well-respected historians of the Holocaust. In it, he warns that democracy here is under serious threat, in the way that German democracy was prior to Hitler’s rise — and really could topple altogether.

...

Browning’s essay covers many topics, ranging from Trump’s “America First” foreign policy — a phrase most closely associated with a group of prewar American Nazi sympathizers — to the role of Fox News as a kind of privatized state propaganda office. But the most interesting part of his argument is the comparison between Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mc Connell and Paul von Hindenburg, the German leader who ultimately handed power over to Hitler. Here’s how Browning summarizes the history:

...

Mc Connell, in Browning’s eyes, is doing something similar — taking whatever actions he can to attain power, including breaking the system for judicial nominations (cough cough, Merrick Garland) and empowering a dangerous demagogue under the delusion that he can be fully controlled:

"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."
RainingMetal (Handed A Sword) Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#256869: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:44:27 PM

Godwin's Law becomes more literal. There's a reason why people calling Trumpists Neo-Nazis isn't all bias.

ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#256870: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:49:52 PM

[up] It's somewhat more complicated than that; if you read the actual article he concedes of course that there are some key differences between the United States and Weimar Germany; what we should fear is not the sort of plunge into outright totalitarianism the occurred in Germany, but rather the gradual undermining and deterioration of democracy into populist strongman rule similar to what we see in modern day Turkey, a system which in many ways shares more in common with the mob rule skeptics of democracy such as Plato expressed concerns about than it does with fascism.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Oct 5th 2018 at 10:50:23 AM

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#256871: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:50:54 PM

That insight, incidentally, was a concern people brought up very early into Trump's win. That a historian of this importance would confirm those fears is pretty scary.

SteamKnight Since: Jun, 2018
#256872: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:50:55 PM

[up][up][up][up] Whoa, that is some discomforting and terrifying stuff there. I wonder how Trump or the GOP or his base are going to respond to this essay.

Edited by SteamKnight on Oct 5th 2018 at 9:50:28 PM

I'm not as witty as I think I am. It's a scientifically-proven fact.
CookingCat Since: Jul, 2018
#256873: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:52:06 PM

[up][up][up][up][up] It's closer to Fascist Italy or Apartheid South Africa than Nazi Germany, especially their incompetence.

Edited by CookingCat on Oct 5th 2018 at 7:53:42 AM

TheWanted Since: Oct, 2013
#256874: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:55:21 PM

I wasnt trying to be despair inducing or anything with that question about a cvil war. Frankly I think we havent had a second one is that the first was so horrible nobody is in the mood for a do-over. Which is a good thing.

I suppose what I mean is that the imo the divide has gotten too deep. There are certain values we've generally agreed to compromise with each other on, but we've been steadily moving torwards the core values that cant be.

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#256875: Oct 5th 2018 at 7:58:47 PM

There isn’t going to be a civil war. That’s simply not realistic in any way, even bringing it up is baseless fearmongering.

I’ll echo what Cap said above, American totalitarianism has always been to the tune of a populist strongman, not a Nazi state. That makes it both easier and harder to defeat, it’s a slow slide so we have time to work on it but it’s less obvious.

Edited by archonspeaks on Oct 5th 2018 at 7:59:52 AM

They should have sent a poet.

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